Zion Oil & Gas Inc (ZNOG)

[Bruce_Mcdonalds]

I'm glad you like research. In researching Zion Oil and "oil-in-Israel" one of the things I found most illuminating is the following:
Over-riding royalties to the Zion Oil Board and Senior Management: 1.5%
Over-riding royalties to two charities (required by the lease): 6%
Over-riding royalties to Israel : 12.5%
Tax on activities in Israel: 25%
Tax on removing oil resource itself: 20% increasing to 50% once ISRAEL expenses recovered (not Texas expenses).

Now, do a spreadsheet, keeping in mind one barrel of oil weight 425 lbs and the maximum tanker hauling weight on an Israeli highway is about 40,000 lbs of product (plus another 18,000 lbs for the tanker truck), so shipping is not free. Loading, unloading, truck rental, driver salary, and transporting 100 barrels to the refinery is likely to cost around $1500 (per trip) or $15 a barrel for transport. Over-rides at $25/barrel oil are $5 a barrel. So you can see, just transportation and royalties takes a big bite out of your operation, before anything at all is spent on the operation.

Be sure to include a burn rate of 8 million dollars a year in Texas (administrative cost, not related to Israel activities).

For output levels compare to Givot Olam's production of 800 barrels a day in Israel, or compare to other good commercial oil finds elsewhere in the world.

Now put in the cost of operating the well, pumping, drilling crew, etc, plus all the above including taxes and resource removal tax in a spreadsheet, and tell me about what's left over for dividends to the stockholders.

Hint; The general partners of Givot Olam (they had a one well in Israel in operation) bankrupted their limited partners at $70 to $80 per barrel oil with one oil well operating where the general partners pocketed over-riding royalties (in spite of operating the well at a loss). When the limited partners ran out of money to operate the well, the well was shut down, while the general partners went smiling all the way to the bank.

Also, since you mention shale, you might want to research the difference between shale oil vs oil shale. Israel is known to have oil shale. With or without fracking, the technology to obtain commercial oil from oil shale does not exist at this time, at any price. Do not mix up oil shale and shale oil, they are completely different.

You mention Blue and White alliance with Netanyahu as a positive development. Blue and White is a liberal political organization in alignment with the Palestinians and liberal Israeli's, with the party masquerading by name only as a pro_Israel party. They are not pro Jewish. And there is no way the Blue and White bureaucrats, in their view, are going to allow Israel to steal Palestinian oil, which to them, is all the oil anywhere in Israel. So don't be afraid to check out the Blue and White to see what they really believe. Some say Netanyahu has made a deal with the devil when it comes to the Blue and White. I think eventually it will become apparent to Netanyahu that's exactly who he has made a deal with. But for Zion Oil, the Blue and White Party there is not a good thing.