Zion Oil drill stuck before target strata

The company will have to drill a new well at its onshore Maanit Yosef 3 site.

Zion Oil & Gas Inc. (AMEX:ZN) reports that the drill at its onshore Maanit Yosef 3 well east of Hadera on the Coastal Plain stuck at a depth of 5,000 meters. The company will have to drill a new well to reach the Permian Era target strata a depth of 5,900 meters.

Zion Oil's share price fell 16.7% in after-hours trading in New York, after rising 6.3% during trading to $5.40, giving a market cap of $135 million.

Zion Oil has two licenses, and last week it announced that the Petroleum Supervisor awarded the company a new petroleum exploration license on land within Zion's previous (and now expired) Issachar-Zebulun Permit area. The company has named the new license the "Jordan Valley License". Zion expects to formally receive the license soon.

Zion Oil is a focus of attention among US evangelicals, and the company updates its investors about its operations in parallel with notices to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Chairman John Brown founded the company in 2000.

In early April, Zion Oil CEO Richard Rinberg said that the well had reached a depth of 5,053 meters. He added that drilling at that depth came with technical challenges, which forced the company to try to release stuck pipes. On Friday, he said that the drill was apparently stuck in hard rock, and that pressure at the depth broke the pipes. Although most of the pipe was withdrawn, a 290-meter length remained in the borehole.

Rinberg said that the company decided to drill a bypass well, which will begin at a depth of 4,300 meters.

Turkey's Guney Yildizi Petrol AS (GYP) is the drilling contractor for the Yosef Maanit 3 well. Because this well is taking longer than planned, the company is unable to begin drilling the Ofek 1 well for Globe Exploration LP (TASE: GLEX.L) on time.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 17, 2011

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2011

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