In a golden wheat field set among the green hills of Israel's Adullam region, Harold Vinegar gestures to a drilling rig as it pulls up core samples of oil shale from some 400 meters (1,312 feet) down. "Israel has one of the largest deposits of oil shale rock in the world, enough to produce 250 billion barrels," says the 62-year-old geologist, who spent three decades at Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A), eventually becoming Shell's chief physicist. "Saudi Arabia has reserves of 260 billion barrels. Most people don't realize yet that Israel has the potential to be one of the world's major oil producers." Read more
