Egypt Gas Cheer for BP Fields
Friday 5 May 2017
BP has starting producing gas from its $12 billion offshore West Nile Delta (WND) development, positioning Egypt to move closer to self-sufficiency in domestic gas output.
"First output from (the) North Alexandria gas fields were placed on the production map recently, reaching 650 million cubic feet of gas per day from the first phase of the Taurus and Libra fields," Egypt Oil Minister Tarek El-Molla said.
"The North Alexandria project’s output will rise gradually as we go through new phases to reach 1.4 billion cubic feet of gas per day by mid 2018."
The North Alexandria and West Mediterranean concessions, which together make up WND, involve developing 5 trillion cubic feet of gas resources and 55 million barrels of condensate.
Molla said rising output from WND, together with the start-up of Eni's offshore Zohr development will help Egypt meet all its domestic gas needs by the end of next year.
"The strategy of the oil sector relies on achieving self-sufficiency of natural gas by the end of 2018. We also plan to achieve a surplus by 2020," he said.
Any surplus gas may be exported via Egypt’s existing liquefied natural gas facilities, which became idle after the government had to divert supplies to the domestic market to satisfy rising demand following the 2011 revolution.
BP has been developing the shallower Taurus and Libra fields as part of the initial WND development.
Nine wells were completed last year and “subsea construction fleets mobilised last summer and main pipeline structures were laid”, BP said.
Production is through the nearby Burullus facilities operated by Shell following its takeover of BG Group.
At WND, BP and its German partner Dea own all the gas being produced and dedicated to domestic use.
After completing the first five major developments at Taurus, Libra, Giza, Fayoum and Raven for the specified gas output of 1.2 Bcfd, Egypt and BP will be looking at a second development phase covering the Viper, Ruby, Polaris and Hodoa fields, though production targets have not been specified.
BP North Africa regional president Hesham Mekawi has said the supermajor is targeting Egyptian production of 2.5 Bcfd by the end of the decade.