Oil exploration in Israel scored important successes during the 1950s and 1960s. During the last two decades, however, it achieved only few, moderate successes interspersed with many failures. The paper presents a summary of the geologic background as well as of drilling activities, and comes to the conclusion that neglect of hydrodynamic factors is the major cause of failures to locate oil. A systematic search for secondary, hydrodynamic oil traps at medium depths is advocated.
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