上周的新闻发布会上，采石场修复基金会(QRF)主席Mimran，和国家基础设施部长说，到2020年，以色列将面临原料短缺。以色列目前有80个在运营采石场，有大约一千个正在挖掘和需要修复的采石场。然而，近14年来没有新的采石场通过审批。以色列土地管理局国家石矿场的督察Yossi Bar-Niv说。
Mimran警告说，几种基础原料正在面临枯竭的危险，骨料（砾石），玄武岩，沙子，磷酸盐，及石灰水泥已经或正在以色列变的稀缺。这些基本原料的缺乏将不可避免地推动成本上升无论是对材料本身还是对于消费者来说。Bar-Niv指出，在在短短三年间玄武岩的成本已经由20新谢克尔每吨上升到100新谢克尔每吨。
最近，对现有的采石场完成一项详尽的调查后，Ben-Eliezer和Mimran在星期四宣布：到2015年以色列将只能依靠27座采石场每年生产4500万吨原料。他们还预计，到2015年，将短缺4.35亿吨骨料，而到2035年短缺骨料将达到10.08亿吨。骨料对建筑业来说是非常关键的。
目前有60家采石场在生产骨料，但是Mimran说，到2026年，大多数采石场将已经开采完，并关闭和修复。他还说，沙也将短缺。丘沙正在用尽，因此他和部长建议用石沙来代替。
Ben-Eliezer和Mimran认为一个开放更多采石场的国家战略计划急需出台。
政府专员指出，由于私自开采采石场以及没有政府的监督，已经造成了生态破坏。而国家计划的出台将增加供应量，从而遏止这些私人采石场。
附英文：
Israel faces severe raw materials shortage
At a special press conference this past Thursday, Mimran and National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer warned that there would be shortages in raw materials by 2020. There are currently 80 working quarries in Israel, and about a thousand which have been tapped out and are in need of rehabilitation. However no new quarry has been approved by the national planning council in the last 14 years, Yossi Bar-Niv, national quarry inspector at the Israel Lands Authority, told The Jerusalem Post.
Mimran warned that several basic raw materials were in danger of depletion. Aggregate (gravel), basalt, sand, phosphates, and lime for cement have become or will shortly become scarce in Israel, he said. The lack of such basic raw materials will inexorably push up costs, both for the materials themselves and for consumers, he warned. Bar-Niv pointed out that the cost of basalt had gone from NIS 20 per ton to NIS 100 per ton in just three years.
After recently completing an exhaustive survey of existing quarries, Ben-Eliezer and Mimran announced on Thursday that by 2015 Israel would be relying on just 27 quarries to produce 45 million tons of raw materials per year. By 2015, they said they expected a 435 million ton shortage in aggregate and a 1,008 million ton shortage by 2035. Aggregate is critical to the construction industry.
At present there are 60 quarries producing aggregate, but Mimran said that by 2026 most would be tapped out, shut down and rehabilitated. He also said there would be a shortage in sand: Dune sand has been running out, so he and the minister have suggested using quarried sand instead.
A national strategic plan for opening more quarries was needed, Ben-Eliezer and Mimran argued.
Part of the ecological damage attributed to quarries had been caused by pirate operations - quarries which had been opened by private individuals and were not under the supervision of the government, the petroleum commissioner noted. A national plan would enable an increase in supply, which would make such unsupervised quarries unneccessary.
