Israeli group signs deal to sell Dead Sea oil

Israel’s Zerah Oil and Gas Exploration said on Wednesday it would sell oil it had discovered near the Dead Sea to Oil Refineries for a six-month trial period.

Delivery will begin immediately, it said in a statement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

Zerah estimated that initially it would supply Israel’s largest refinery in Haifa with an average 160 barrels per day. This is about 58,000 barrels a year, a drop in the ocean compared with the 84 million barrels the country consumes annually.

Zerah owns half of an exploration group that announced in January it had found indications of oil in drilling in the arid region near the Dead Sea.

Despite decades of exploration, Zerah’s two sites near the Dead Sea would be just the second and third sites currently to produce oil in commercial quantities.

Reuters