Isramco hoping to buy Ratio permit

After the discovery of giant fields of natural gas in the floor of the Mediterranean Sea, at the permit sites Tamar and Dalit, interest in nearby seabed sites is spiking. Isramco recently proposed buying the 15% share that the Ratio Oil Exploration partnership owns in the permit area "Ratio Sea," which is 30 kilometers southwest of the Tamar structure, TheMarker has learned.

Seismic surveys that Ratio conducted on Ratio Sea two years ago revealed a gigantic geological structure surmised to have natural gas five to six kilometers below sea level. The structure has been dubbed "the whale," because of its vastness compared with the Tamar site, which is not small either.

Ratio Sea actually consists of five licenses totaling 1,776 square kilometers, 100 kilometers off the Haifa shoreline.

Isramco's partners in the Tamar permit area, Noble Energy, Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration, already each own a share in the Ratio Sea permit.

Insofar as is known, Ratio has refused to sell its share in Ratio Sea to Isramco. Neither company would comment for this report.

Ratio has been searching for oil and gas for 16 years and has so far participated in 17 explorations, in which it's invested NIS 100 million. It has owned the Ratio Sea permit share for three years. But because of the costs involved in exploring it, in 2007 Ratio suggested that Delek Drilling and Avner come on board as partners.