The World - News from Aug. 29, 1986

American industrialist Armand Hammer said seismic surveys indicate good prospects for finding large amounts of oil in Israel. Hammer, the head of Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum, said at a dinner in Tel Aviv that he has put together a group of private investors which obtained a government concession to drill in the Negev Desert. A businessman close to the project said the Hammer group had been awarded a 2-million-acre concession in the desert near the Egyptian border at Nitzana, 95 miles south of Tel Aviv. Drilling is expected to begin in October. Israel spends about $1.1 billion a year, 5% of its annual budget, on oil imports.