HAIFA, Israel, July 1, 2008/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Oil Refineries Ltd.(TASE:ORL.TA)("Oil Refineries" or the "Company") announced that on June 30, 2008 it signed an agreement for the purchase of 31.25% of Mercury Aviation (Israel) Ltd (hereafter "Mercury Israel") which engages in aviation refuelling services at Ben Gurion Airport, Israel's main international airport. The shares are purchased from a third party, unrelated to the Company or its shareholders and the price paid for the shares is NIS 2.7 million.

Mercury Israel has a franchise agreement with the Israeli Airport Authority for plane refuelling services at Ben Gurion Airport until December 24, 2012. Mercury Israel's activity accounts for about 50% of the aviation refuelling activity at Ben Gurion Airport. The largest shareholder in Mercury Israel (37.5%) is Mercury Air Group which is a US company involved in plane refuelling at various airports.

Mr. Yashar Ben Mordechai, CEO of Oil Refineries commented on the acquisition, "We continue to look for routes that will lead to the broadening of our activities and accelerating our growth over the coming years. As such was the recent announcement of the signing on the agreement for the purchase of the reminder of Carmel Olefins shares, and such is the case now with this acquisition, whose purpose is to facilitate the entry of Oil Refineries into activities parallel to its core business."

Mr. Ben Mordechai added, "This is the first entry of Oil Refineries into infrastructure activities, outside the Company's facilities. The entry into partnership with Mercury Air Group, an international company, will serve as an additional route for us to broaden our activities outside of Israel and to further advance the strategic goal of the Company of broadening activities into areas that are in parallel to our core business."

The completion of the transaction in accordance with the agreement is subject to various binding conditions including, approval of the Board of Directors of the Company and of the seller, approval from the Anti-Trust Commissioner and other conditions that are determined in the agreement. Therefore, there is no certainty regarding the timescale of the completion of the deal or whether the deal will be completed at all.

About Oil Refineries Ltd.
Oil Refineries Ltd. (ORL), located in the bay area of the city of Haifa, operates Israel's largest oil refinery. ORL operates sophisticated and state-of-the-art industrial facilities with refining capacity of 9 million tons of crude oil per year, with a Nelson complexity index of 7.4, providing a variety of quality products used in industrial operation, transportation, private consumption, agriculture and infrastructure. The company is also active in the area of Aromatics and Polymers through wholly-owned Gadiv Petrochemical Industries Ltd. and 50% owned Carmel Olefins Ltd. ORL is traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange under the ticker ORL. For additional information please visit the Company's website: http://www.orl.co.il/.

About Mercury Air Group
Based in Los Angeles, Mercury Air Group, Inc. was founded in 1956 by three members of the legendary First American Volunteer Group (AVG) Flying Tigers. Today, Mercury is a global leader in the aviation services industry and is one of the largest privately owned aviation services company in the world with business operations on five continents in more than 60 locations. Mercury Air Group provides aviation petroleum products, air cargo services and transportation as well as support services for international and U.S. commercial airlines, general aviation and U.S. government aircraft.