Israel‘s “Black Gold” – an Interview with Dr. Scott Nguyen
(October 2011)
http://www.drzz.fr was in Jerusalem last month and interviewed a key member of the Israel Energy Initiative (IEI) Technologies team, Dr. Scott Nguyen, a colleague of Dr. Vinegar at Shell who moved from Houston, Texas to join in this important petro-resource development project for Israel’s and Western energy independence. The revelations in this Drzz fr. interview are stunning. The oil shale in the Shfela basin does not have the environmental problems encountered in the Rocky Mountains projects. Moreover, the technologies used in development and production are fairly conventional. The results could mean Israel satisfying its energy requirements beginning with production of 250,000 barrels per day by the beginning of the next decade. The Shfela oil shale reserves they could rival that of Saudi Arabia, over 250 billion barrels. If you couple the Shfela basin project of IEI with the offshore gas fields developments, Israel could become a proverbial 800 pound gorilla and game changer in the geo-politics of energy. More immediately, Israel could have a willing partner in the EU, desperate to avoid Russian control over both its natural gas and oil energy needs. That could mean Western liberation from demands by the Wahhabis, Salafists and Mahdists in the oil regions of the Middle East and Muslim Ummah. Maybe Ha Shem does work in mysterious yet positive ways with help from science and technology. Now, with the IEI oil shale developments discussed in this Drzz.fr. interview, the tables may have been turned on the perennial Jewish joke about Moses making a wrong turn and missing a lake of underground oil.
Oil shale, a dense block of smooth stone
Shfela oil basin in green
Scott Nguyen, Vice President Technology at IEI
Jean-Patrick Grumberg: Mr. Scott Nguyen, you are a graduate of Harvard University in the U.S., you have a PHD and you were Senior Physicist at Shell. You filed on your behalf, more than twenty patents for inventions in the United States and you are now working in Israel for Israel Energy Initiative (IEI).
Scott Nguyen: Right.
Grumberg: How long have you lived in Israel?
Nguyen: I came to Israel a little over a year, ago. I joined IEI in August 2010.
Grumberg: Where were you?
Grumberg: What made ??you decide to come to this small country and leave the great Houston, Texas?
Nguyen:(Laughing) Because I was working with Harold Vinegar when he was chief scientist at Shell. When he retired here in Israel, I received a phone call from him, and he asked me to join him at IEI. Upon reflection, and a visit with my wife, we decided that we had a good opportunity to try something new. So I joined IEI, which is a private company in Israel. We have multiple investors, but the main investor is a company in the United States. This is Genie Energy.
Most major oil companies, especially those operating in the Gulf and the Middle East, will have no operations in Israel.
What is the confirmed amount of oil in Israel?
Grumberg: Okay, so all we have to do is wait.
Grumberg: Confirmed?
And I think the number of 250 billion barrels is a very prudent one.
Grumberg: And that could meet the needs of the country for how long?
Nguyen: Well, if you do the math, about 3000 years.
Grumberg: Wide-eyed.
Grumberg: But they have pipes, they only have to draw the liquid.
Grumberg: And how do we move from resource to reserve?
Nguyen: Skip to the production of oil and gas, it takes time. We are in the first phase, we call it the exploration phase, and that is where we want to know how much oil we have. We now know exactly where the resources are and where they are best.
Grumberg: Here?
Nguyen: Yes.
Grumberg: This is good news!
Grumberg: To reach 250,000 barrels per day, you think it will take twenty years?
Nguyen: Our first goal is 50,000 barrels per day by the end of this decade, and then, in 2020, 250,000 barrels per day. The rest depends on the initiative of the Israeli government and its priorities.
Grumberg: What kind of infrastructure is needed for this operation?
We have a well inside, and then we put in what we call heaters
“We can directly produce different grades of oil”
When you get the normal crude oil, it must pass through many stages of refining. Here the number of steps and the amount of energy needed to produce fuel for your car are much lower. This is because we do much of this refining during extraction
Grumberg: How is it that there is little discussion about these huge oil reserves in the newspapers?
Nguyen: We have had our share of media. However, we would like to demonstrate the technology before any more media coverage.
Grumberg: You mean you have intentionally kept a low profile for now?
Grumberg: Compared with the geopolitical changes, I find that there is very little media coverage.
Grumberg: Dr. Vinegar said that for him the most frightening challenges are the environmentalists.
Nguyen: They would not necessarily be the most frightening, but what we want to show them is that we know how to extract the oil in a sustainable manner without disrupting the environment. When you talk about oil shale, there are two different images.
Grumberg: Both are negative.
Nguyen: Well, okay! Both negative, but there are two images, when you talk about oil shale. One is the general perception of the oil industry, which is not always favorable.
Grumberg: A group of environmentalists tried to block you, and sued you in a case that is not yet over.
Nguyen: Yes, we know that the resources are there. The stone that you have before you is shale. We extracted almost a mile of this rock from the ground. We drilled six wells. From these wells, geologists have mapped the entire area, so we know exactly how much oil shale is in the area of our concession.
Grumberg: Second, what are the environmental risks?
Nguyen: This is the concern of the Ministry of Environment, the people who live in the area, and it is also our concern. From our experience we know what kind of problem we face, so we invested a lot of work here in the early years, to analyze that. We have done many tests, and each time we were more certain that we are completely isolated from ground water. There are no other risks, because it is not a mining operation.
Grumberg: What is the Israeli government involvement?
Nguyen: The Israeli government knows that it is a good project for the state
Nguyen: I think most people are in favor of this project. They know that we are competent, that we can demonstrate the technology and increase commerce.
Grumberg: Of course!
Nguyen: At these universities, they have barely begun to initiate this program in the engineering departments. At the start there will be oil engineering. There is also the work of the Academy of Natural Sciences on how best to develop the gas industry here in Israel.
I believe that it is possible for Israel to catch up and advance this project. If Israel is able to accomplish this, it will make things easier for the Israeli economy.
Grumberg: Scott, apart from the professional challenge, do you have a deeper motivation behind your decision to have abandoned the comforts of the United States, and to be here?
Nguyen: Yes, and a strong motivation: it is the desire to have a long lasting impact. I wanted to implement a technology that has the potential to change the whole geopolitical dynamics of the region.
Interview September 25, 2011 at the offices of IEI in Jerusalem.
www.Drzz.fr
Notes:
Extraction of oil shale is done by heating to 325 degrees Celsius of the rock underground with electric heaters, which produces a light oil that can easily be turned into diesel fuel, kerosene, jet aircraft and related products.
An aquifer passes a few hundred meters below the basin drilling. The risk of pollution of its water is zero due to impermeable crust that separates the layer of shale.
http://www.mni.gov.il/mni/en-US/NaturalResources/MinesandQuarries/QuarriesOilShale.htmhttp://www.mni.gov.il/mni/en-US/NaturalResources/MinesandQuarries/QuarriesOilShale.htm
http://www.drzz.fr/confirmation-israel-2e-plus-grosse-reserve-de-petrole-au-monde/(1) http://www.drzz.fr/confirmation-israel-2e-plus-grosse-reserve-de-petrole-au-monde/
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/147035http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/147035
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/147319http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/147319
http://www.oilinisrael.net/top-stories/special-report-zion-oilhttp://www.oilinisrael.net/top-stories/special-report-zion-oil
http://www.investorplace.com/2011/04/israel-shale-oil-leviathan-field-crude/http://www.investorplace.com/2011/04/israel-shale-oil-leviathan-field-crude/
http://www.texasisrael.org/newsletters/q22011/q22011.htmlhttp://www.texasisrael.org/newsletters/q22011/q22011.html
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