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Friday, November 17, 2006

Hold the Presses

(Hat tip: Meryl)

I think this may be huge. Meryl: [Ez: spliced/emphasis by me]

Glenn Reynolds says there’s good news on oil shale, and points to an article that says the Feds have given three oil companies the go-ahead to work on shale.

They should have talked to this Israeli company instead:

HAIFA, Israel, Nov. 7 (UPI) — The Israeli process for producing energy from oil shale will cut its oil imports by one-third.

A.F.S.K. Hom Tov presented its oil shale processing method on Tuesday, outside Haifa and just down the street from one of the country’s two oil refinery facilities.

“Because the patents for this process belong to (the company), Israel is the most advanced in the world in the effort to create energy from oil shale,” Moshe Shahal told United Press International.

How much is this all going to cost? $17 a barrel.

It would cost about $17 to produce a barrel of synthetic oil at the Hom Tov facility, meaning giant profit margins in a world of $45 to $60 per barrel crude. Yearly earnings are forecasted to be between $159 million and $350 million, Shahal said.

Of course, the sweetest part in all of this is that if the Israeli-patented process goes global, the Arab nations lose a significant part of the oil threat. Canada and the U.S. have large, untapped oil shale reserves. Score another one for Jewish scientists.

Score for Israel, score for the United States, score for the entire world. It's not alternative energy, but it's a heck of a lot better than the current situation.

6 comments:

  1. Great news!! I've linked to this. Jews rock. It's undeniable.
    -OC

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  2. That's ridiuclous news, I also just post on current oil prices in the US. What a coincidence!

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  3. *eyes pop out of head*

    That's ridonkulous!

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  4. Just a small point of information. The oil from shale costs $17 per barrel to produce. Crude is SOLD for $45-$60. The cost is a combination of production expenses, speculation on scarcity of resources and profit. I have no idea how much the product cost alone is.

    When the other costs are considered, chance are shale oil will be very competitive with crude, but you wouldn't be saving $20+ per barrel.

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  5. The global average production cost for oil is $7.35, with some Saudi oil only costing $3 a barrel to produce. This does not include the cost of finding the oil, just how much to take it out of the ground. So $17 a barrel to produce is much more expensive, but if course if you can produce it yourself for $17, that is much better than buying it from another country at $55.

    There are vast oil shale reserves in the US. For example, Israel has oil shale reserves of 15.4 billion tons, whereas the US has 3.3 trillion (with a "t") tons.

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  6. BSCI - Well, Anon has your info. Nevertheless, he/she makes the point well: For Israel (or the US), the price would still be far lower than the crude being imported from the Middle East.

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