Genie Oil and Gas (GOGAS) explored for conventional oil in the
Israeli-occupied Golan Heights through its Afek Oil and Gas subsidiary, and pursued oil shale projects through
American Shale Oil (AMSO), Israel Energy Initiatives (IEI) and Genie Energy Mongolia. AMSO, IEI, and Genie Energy Mongolia are no longer active. 89% of GOGAS was owned by Genie Energy while Jacob Rothschild, Michael Steinhardt and Rupert Murdoch among others held minority interests.
Afek Oil and Gas In February 2013, Israeli authorities awarded Afek Oil and Gas an exclusive 36-month petroleum exploration license to a plot in the
Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which the
UN recognizes to be Syrian territory. Afek subsequently conducted above-ground geophysical tests and based on its preliminary analysis, has applied for a ten well exploratory drilling program. South of
Katzrin in the southern Golan Heights in 2015, Afek discovered a substantial amount of oil and natural gas reserves which would make Israel energy self-sufficient. The company had drilled a series of exploratory wells including Ness-5, just northwest of the
Avnei Eitan and
Nov moshavim and south of
Kibbutz Natur and the town of Katzrin; Ness-3, near the
Bnei Yehuda industrial area; Ness-6, located near the entrance of
Moshav Kanaf, just southeast of
Gamla; and Ness 10 north of the Sheikh-Ali Fault. In November 2017, the company announced that it suspended its exploratory drilling program as the well's target zone does not contain commercially producible quantities of oil or natural gas. Human rights groups have said the drilling violates international law as Golan Heights is an occupied territory.
American Shale Oil American Shale Oil (AMSO) was a joint venture between Genie Energy and
Total S.A. Genie announced in May 2016 that the partners were closing the venture. and its pilot plant facilities located outside of Rifle, Colorado, were subsequently decommissioned and removed. AMSO received in 2006 a Research, Development and Demonstration (RD&D) lease from the U.S.
Bureau of Land Management in Colorado's
Piceance Basin in order to develop a process for generating oil and gas from deep buried
oil shale. The lease comprised a tract of , and was granted for an initial term of 10 years with the possibility of up to a 5-year extension upon proof of diligent progress toward commercial production. AMSO's tech team was headed by Dr. Alan Burnham, a scientist at
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. AMSO's proposed technology was called CCR (Conduction, Convection, Reflux). In September 2014, a government planning committee rejected a building permit for the project. The committee decision essentially killed the project, as IEI did not pursue any means of appeal. By the time of the committee ruling most of the staff of IEI, including Chief Scientist
Harold Vinegar, had moved to work at the sister company, Afek. IEI planned to use In-Situ Conversion Process technology for its pilot project, following the format a 1995 trial by
Royal Dutch Shell. Shell subsequently shut down its work on developing the technology. Israel's major environmental organizations, including the
Jewish National Fund, the
Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel,
Greenpeace, and the
Israel Union for Environmental Defense protested against the IEI license. Environmental concerns include the potential for contaminating Israel's Shfela
aquifer, which runs underneath the Shfela oil shale formation, for destroying a rural region of Israel that currently promotes eco-tourism, and for reversing Israel's efforts to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. Residents of the local community of
Adullam and their supporters led the campaign to stop the IEI work, citing both the environmental damage and the questionable economic value of the project. ==See also==