*2.1. Data*

The present research considers 639 announcements published during the years 2008–2017 with regard to NG discoveries in Israel. The announcements were obtained from leading Israeli Internet news sites and from the publications of corporations and entities related to the energy sector and the NG industry in particular. Included among them are Ynet, Globes, Calcalist, Walla News, Bizportal, and Energy News. Each announcement in the database was classified according to a subtopic that characterizes it. The subtopic categories are Drilling, Exploration, Import, Export, Development, Infrastructure, Electricity, Companies, and Regulation. The announcements were also categorized according to the date and time of publication in order to prevent duplication from di fferent sources of publication and maintain compatibility with the Event Study Methodology. The results of that methodology rely upon the examination of time periods.

For each announcement, 316 items of data regarding daily and intraday returns for the ILS to USD exchange rate were obtained from the Reuters system for the estimation window and the event window time periods. Our focus on the ILS to USD exchange rate is because all the NG contracts in Israel are signed in terms of USD per MMBTU (Measure of the energy content in a fuel). In addition, USD has the highest weight in Nominal E ffective Exchange Rate in Israel [17]

Duplicate publications from di fferent sources were removed from the initial collection of announcements, as were repeated announcements that had previously been published. After the additional screening, 296 "pure" articles remained. These were defined as announcements that were not additionally published with regard to the content of the initial publication during the 16 days preceding and the 16 days following.

The public awareness of the importance of NG in Israel began early in 2009 with the discovery of the Tamar gas field. The number of announcements published in 2010 was the largest in comparison to other years (53 pure announcements in 2010 versus on average 30 a year in 2009, 2011–2017). Most of the announcements that year concerned the Leviathan field, which was discovered at the time, and the Tamar field, which was discovered in the preceding year.

The database is divided into the four following analysis groups. (1) The first group is a general group including all 296 pure announcements in the sample. (2) Second, there is a group in which the sample is divided according to the subject area of the article. This second group included Panel A (68 Export announcements), Panel B (78 Exploration and Drilling announcements), Panel C (47 Companies and Development announcements), Panel D (72 Electricity and Infrastructure announcements), and Panel E (38 Import and Regulation announcements). In the second group, the research investigates whether announcements in specific areas have greater influence than those in other areas. (3) The third group consists of single announcements including 243 articles, as compared to multiple announcements including 43 articles. In this group, the research analyzed the influence of the announcements according to their frequency of publication. (4) The last group was divided according to the time period of publication. The sample is separated into two periods: old announcements (146 articles) and new announcements (150 articles). In this group, the research examines whether the announcements from recent years have a stronger impact on the real exchange rate than old announcements that were published prior to 1 January 2013. As mentioned above, the year 2013 is a focal point in the energy sector of Israel with the connection of Tamar field and the beginning of the local NG supply. The purpose of the division according to analysis groups is to characterize the influence of the publications on the exchange rate separately for each group, and to investigate the significance of the impact in each group.

Figure 1 presents the fluctuation in the daily ILS to USD representative exchange rate and some of the major events concerning the NG industry in Israel. The exchange rate policy of the Bank of Israel is based on the free movement of ILS's exchange rate against other currencies. With that, the bank maintains the option for "dirty float", i.e., to intervene in foreign currency trading in situations

of extraordinary movements in the exchange rate that are not in line with fundamental economic conditions, or when the foreign exchange market is not functioning appropriately [18]

**Figure 1.** Timeline of natural gas (NG)-related events and the daily New Israeli Shekel (ILS) to United States dollar (USD) real exchange rate.

Evidently, between January 2009 and May 2017, the daily ILS against USD exchange rate reached as high as 4.30 ILS/USD on 23 April 2009 and as low as 3.35 ILS/USD on 7 June 2011. Notably, the former governor of the Bank of Israel claimed that the exchange rate decline in 2013–2014 was partly due to expectations of future trade balance increase due to NG exports: expectations that, in her opinion, overappreciated the currency [19].
