My opinion
There’s a taste here – to put it no more strongly than that – that Zion Oil & Gas is a company run not to find oil but to pay those looking for oil. The funding to do so comes from the religiously inclined who are undertaking that funding for religious reasons. That makes it – for us non-religiously motivated investors out here – a dangerous proposition.More than that, the company has been working for two decades now, found nothing, is diluting the extant stockholder base at a rapid rate (in 2012 there were 31.3 million shares outstanding, by now it’s that 400 million and change as above) and apparently intends to continue doing so.
There are variances in the Zion stock price and those can be traded and assuming that it’s possible to get timings right – and directions – money can be made. But that’s what is being traded, the volatility of belief in the mission, not the underlying fundamentals of the business.
Babylon rule mon. I’n I fear Jah him a long time comin’.
I do find the religious aspect of this fascinating. To one way of thinking about it, oil exploration’s a lottery. You luck in to strike, you hit the jackpot. So who better than to Have The Lord On Your Side. Why I couldn’t resist the notion of a Rastafari oil exploration company. Of course one finds oil with expertise. Not the power of prayer. So less prayin’ ‘n more learnin’ folks.
BiS – it’s Yahweh or the highway my man.
sigh
The whole point is NOT to find oil.
It is to prove that the Earth is only 6,500 or so years old.
In a gold rush, sell shovels.
Here’s my market analysis. Gilts were in free fall – meaning that I, a standard mug punter (sorry, retail investor), could have bought some at an excellent price. Instead the BoE “stepped in” and took away my chance of a bargain. The newspapers all welcomed this. Why?
It’s like the newspaper complaints that the government hadn’t tipped off the City that it planned an income tax cut. That seems to me to be a complaint that the City wasn’t accorded the opportunity to do a bit of insider dealing to the detriment of me and other retail investors. Why is that held to be a good thing?
Has it occurred to you that such an operation might not be anything to do with looking for oil, and quite a lot to do with espionage?
BiS: I dunno. Didn’t the Chinese find oil on their mainland after reading The Chairman’s Little Red Book? This at a time when the learned rest of us ‘knew’ there was no oil on the Chinese mainland.
This at a time when the learned rest of us ‘knew’ there was no oil on the Chinese mainland.
There was a time when the chairman of BP promised he’d personally drink every barrel of oil produced in the UK North Sea.
Funny thing about oil is that people have been predicting Peak Oil for over 100 years, but the more we look for it, the more we find. Hence the importance, to the Green Blob, of queering the pitch so nobody goes looking for those pesky hydrocarbons.
Understand the Israelis’ve found gas off their coast. I believe they squabble with Lebanon over the boundaries.
Still, I agree with Tim. I wouldn’t put a penny into it.
But then I didn’t waste my money investing in the underground gasification of coal in Queensland.
I still think it’s technically feasible. But Qld was evolving ever more swiftly from bestial benighted Bjelke-land to the present Labor ruled paradise, so any idiotic impulses were suppressed.
And of course I think the gas interests have finally wound up their decades long lawfare against the project. No doubt that’s why the Greens never seemed to be short of money to oppose it.
I wish I’d put even half a penny into it, Bogan. Estimated reserves of recoverable gas in the Levant basin are about a third of Russia’s. Finding buyers is now the problem. Or was until Nordstream got blown up. Expect the pipelayers trundling to Italy soon.
About 40 years ago the Israeli press reported a theory that the Saudi oil fields actually stretched deep under Israel.
The geology sloped downwards, so drillers only had to go much deeper than usual.
I have no idea of the accuracy of this claim. But it would support the Zion Oil investors.
Christian fundamentalists have long had the belief that Israel would become super-rich. A popular theory was that the Dead Sea contained trillions of dollars worth of chemicals.
‘Or was until Nordstream got blown up’
Thanks philip. Another sabotage candidate!!!!