The Management of Ratio Oil Exploration Partnership opened the trading this morning to mark 25 years of trading on the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE).
Since its founding, the Partnership has operated in the area of oil and gas exploration in Israel, and in particular in the development and commercialization of gas at the Leviathan Reserve, in which it holds a 15% stake.
The Partnership has a market cap. of approximately NIS 3 billion, and is the third largest oil and gas exploration partnership in Israel. Today there are 19 companies and partnerships engaged in oil and gas exploration that are traded on TASE, with a market cap. of approximately NIS 33 billion, and with bonds with a value of NIS 10.5 billion.
The Partnership is included in TASE’s TA-90, TA-125, TA Oil & Gas, and TA-Sector Balance indices, with an average daily trading volume of approximately NIS 6 million.
Yigal Landau, CEO and Owner of Ratio: “The event today is yet another milestone in the Ratio’s long journey that began in 1993 – a journey that proves that perseverance and hard work yield results. Ratio, which was founded by my late father, Shaikeh, the Rotlevy family, the geologist Eitan Eisenberg and the late Zvi Tzafriri, is the only oil partnership that is still owned by its founders. I would like to point out today that this journey has also included many failures over the years in the drilling that we undertook, but we always believed that the State of Israel could achieve energy independence, and we are proud to stand here today, as the coming year will mark a turning point and Ratio’s transformation from an exploration partnership to a partnership that develops and seeks energy sources in Israel and abroad, and is expected to become a comprehensive partnership by the end of 2019. As is well-known, the strategic Leviathan drilling, in which Ratio is a partner, is expected to start supplying gas to the State of Israel and to foreign markets at the end of 2019, and to transform the company to a completely different status from both a business and a financial perspective.”
Yehuda Van der Walde, EVP and CFO of TASE: “At the end of 2010 there was a significant change in the natural gas sector in the State of Israel, when the Partnership reported that approximately 450 billion cubic meters of natural gas had been found in the Leviathan Reserve. This was the largest deep-water natural gas discovery ever made in Israel, and the largest gas discovery in the world in that decade. TASE has served the Partnership throughout the journey, as the optimal platform for raising capital for oil and gas explorations, via the issuance of both bonds and partnership units. Almost 80% of the Partnership is held by the public and institutional investors, who believed in it and have become partners in the journey and in the dream that has become a reality.”
Pictured:
Yigal Landau, Owner and CEO of Ratio; Eitan Eisenberg, Owner, geologist and prospect generator of the Leviathan discovery; Ligad Rotlevy, Chairperson of Ratio; Ratio employees and management; Yehuda van der Walde, EVP and Chief Financial Officer of TASE; Amnon Neubach, Chairman of the Board of Directors of TASE; Ittai Ben-Zeev, CEO of TASE.
