Israel has Gas!

[JackLuis]

[QUOTE]Israel Confirms Major Gas Find[/QUOTE]

JERUSALEM — Exploratory drilling off Israel’s northern coast this week has confirmed the existence of a major natural gas field — one of the world’s largest offshore gas finds of the past decade — leading the country’s infrastructure minister to call it “the most important energy news since the founding of the state.”

Good news?

The find means that Israel, with a long history of dependence on foreign energy and hostility and boycotts from many of the biggest energy powers, could find itself in a much more advantageous position in the coming decade.

But the find has been accompanied by a heated debate over how much in taxes and royalties Israel will charge. A state-appointed committee headed by an economist at Hebrew University, Eytan Sheshinski, is planning to recommend substantially increased profit taxes, opposed by the companies and some on the political right.

Gosh, the right complaining about profit sharing?

Sever Plocker, an economic columnist for Yediot Aharonot newspaper, said in a commentary on Thursday that it was far from clear that the new discovery could be developed profitably. Gas prices could fall, the techniques needed to extract the gas were likely to be complicated and expensive to develop and exporting natural gas required enormous investment for pipelines or the means of transforming the gas into liquid to be moved on tankers, he said.