Eni announced the discovery of a “supergiant” natural gas field in the Mediterranean Sea, just off Egypt’s coast, which is expected to meet the country’s gas needs for decades.
The Zohr gas field, located in the Shorouk block, may contain approximately 30 trillion cubic feet (5.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent) of lean gas, according to Eni’s assessment of well and seismic data. The company stated that Zohr represents the largest gas discovery ever made in both Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea and could rank among the world’s largest natural gas finds.
In January 2014, Eni secured a 100% working interest in the Shorouk block by successfully bidding in a competitive upstream licensing round and signing an agreement with Egypt’s petroleum ministry and state-owned oil and gas firm Egas.
Although Eni has not disclosed specific plans for monetizing the gas reserves, the company emphasized that this discovery will significantly contribute to meeting Egypt’s natural gas demand for decades.
For comparison, Australia’s 9 million tons per year Australia-Pacific LNG project, which remains on track for its first shipment in September, holds around 15.3 trillion cubic feet of proven, probable, and possible reserves, according to upstream operator Origin Energy. Meanwhile, the Gladstone LNG project, set to launch next month with a capacity of 7.8 million tons per year, possesses over 9,000 petajoules (8.5 trillion cubic feet) of dedicated reserves and resources, as reported by its operator, Santos, in a recent half-year results presentation.
Eni now plans to evaluate the Zohr field further and accelerate its development by leveraging existing offshore and onshore infrastructure.
Despite fiscal challenges and security concerns, Egypt has been working to attract investment into its energy sector. The country currently produces 4.4 billion cubic feet per day of gas, which falls short of its 4.7 billion cubic feet per day forecast for the current fiscal year.
To bridge this gap, the government has resorted to LNG imports. Egypt’s first floating storage and regasification unit, which began operations in April, has a receiving capacity of around 4.1 million tons per year and has already imported about 15 LNG cargoes.
Egas has also secured agreements with oil majors and trading firms to supply around 108 LNG cargoes over the next five years.
Source: argusmedia.com
African Energy Council