A Gregarious Gasman,
A High-Stakes Gamble

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271 MERRILL • BIRMINGHAM

amuel "Sandy" Eisenstat is
a quiet man in a field
known for braggadocio.
With his wire-rim glass-
es dangling from his neck and his
button-down oxford shirt, Mr.
Eisenstat looks like the tax
lawyer he is. He does not look like
a man who may be on the verge
of striking it big after 15 years of
a high-stakes gamble in a volatile
industry.
Appearances, as they say, can
be deceiving.
Mr. Eisenstat, 55, is chairman
and founder of Abjac Mazal, an
Israeli oil and gas exploration
company that went public on the
Tel Aviv Stock Exchange four
years ago, and he finally has
something to say.
"We're going to start produc-
ing gas," said Mr. Eisenstat, who
lives in New York and travels to
Israel frequently.
Abjac Mazal, founded in 1990
to join in oil searches in the Kiry-
at Shmona-Hula area, plans to
drill four or five new wells by the
end of the year.
"And that's just the beginning,"
Mr. Eisenstat said. "If you asked
me how many wells next year, I'd
say 20 to 30."
Mr. Eisenstat maneuvers in
an arena crowded with rumor,
premature reports, wishful think-
ing, speculators and skeptics.
And as the moment comes that
he has spent years striving for,
he rues that he cannot announce
his plans without distancing him-
self from the industry he clearly
relishes.
`The oil and gas industry in Is-
rael has very little credibility be-
cause of the hype. It's been one
big hype," Mr. Eisenstat said.
"My problem is to extricate my-
self from the hype."
Although it is not known for
natural resources, Israel has oil
and gas potential, he insisted. Is-
rael has drilled 400 wells since it
started exploration in the 1950s;
one-third of those were to drill a
proven area.
By way of comparison, in the
United States — albeit covering
a huge area — even in a bad year,
some 60,000 wells are drilled, he
said.
Whenever there has been a
sign of gas or oil in Israel, there
has been a hullabaloo. When the
oil or gas prospect fizzled —
which they have — some in-
vestors made money, but most
lost.
Much to the chagrin of some of
Mr. Eisenstat's investors, he said,
Abjac's publicity has been cau-
tious. 'We would announce when

we were ready to announce, and
not before. We would announce
when we had something signifi-
cant."
That moment is here, Mr.
Eisenstat said. "We are now in a
position to say that we have a
commercial play."
A commercial play means that
everywhere the company drills,
it expects to recover at least the
cost of the well, plus something
— "which means we can make
money," Mr. Eisenstat said.
If this sounds like hype, the
chairman of Abjac says, "We have
facts. We have things to show
people. We are about to construct
a storage facility. We are helping
construct an electrical generat-
ing facility."
Mr. Eisenstat is a politically
well-connected man who not once
in this interview suggested that
he had many friends in high
places on several continents. He
is unusually unassuming, the
kind who arrives for an interview
on a New York City bus.
"He takes himself with a grain
of salt — and he's a tremendous
shaker," said Rabbi Haskel Look-
stein of Kehillath Jeshurun, an
Orthodox congregation on Man-
hattan's Upper East Side where
Mr. Eisenstat once served as
president.
Mr. Eisenstat became known
in Washington during his term
as vice president of AIPAC, Rab-
bi Lookstein said. "When I would
meet a congressman or a senator
and I would introduce myself as
Sandy Eisenstat's rabbi — they
would light up like electric bulbs
because they had so much respect
for him."
Mr. Eisenstat worked his way
through New York University as
a waiter.
He studied liberal arts and
business, then went on to his le-
gal education. During a course in
capital gains transactions, sev-
eral lectures involved a tax deal
concerning oil and gas. "I re-
member looking to the guy next
to me in my lecture and saying,
`What, are they crazy? Why are
they teaching us in New York oil
and gas taxation?"
After three years trying tax
cases in the U.S. Attorney's Of-
fice, Mr. Eisenstat went into pri-
vate practice.
He was introduced to a pro-
moter of an oil and gas deal in
Canada, and became involved be-
cause it was a legitimate way to
reduce taxes and possibly earn
some money on his investment.
It turned out to be a good move,
and in 1970 it started Mr. Eisen-