Mochkin Acquires Gas Field

By COLlive reporter

A Lubavitcher is part of a group of investors that have acquired 70% of the rights to develop a field of natural gas from a local company in Ukraine.

The 600-square-kilometer field was purchased for $16 million by a group led by Israeli-Australian entrepreneur Moshe Hershberg, Globes newspaper reported.

Joining him is Mendel Mochkin, a Crown Heights resident in Brooklyn, who is a partner in Avenue Energy Israel.

The group is owned by Mochkin and his brother Levi Mochkin of Melbourne (25%), the Liberman family of Australia (16%) and developer Shaya Boymelgreen of Crown Heights (8.4%).

The group received drilling rights for an oil field in south Ashkelon from TomCo Energy in exchange for an investment of $4 million.

But the deal in Ukraine, sources said, was done by Mendel Mochkin directly, without the involvement of the parent company AEI.

“According to tests already carried out, there is production of natural gas from depths of 500 meters to 2.5 kilometers,” Mochkin told the Israeli financial paper.

“The cost required to produce three wells that were already developed is $16 million, which means that our over-investment will be used to operate the field development ,” he said.

Under the agreement, the Israeli-U.S. group undertook drilling to further unleash the full potential of the area. Cost of drilling is expected to reach tens of millions of dollars in total.