Egypt to increase gas production at Zohr to 700mcf/day in May

CAIRO – 4 March 2018: Minister of Petroleum Tarek el-Molla told Reuters Sunday that Egypt aims at increasing production at Zohr gas field to 700 million cubic feet per day in May, up from about 350 million cubic feet per day.

In 2015, the Italian energy company Eni discovered Zohr gas field in the Shorouk concession, approximately 190 kilometers north of Port Said in an area of 100 square meters (39 sq mi) and at a depth of 1,450 meters (4,760 ft).

The total gas in place of the Zohr gas field is around 850 billion cubic meters (30 trillion cubic feet).

The quantities of gas extracted from Zohr gas field reached 17 percent since its operation, which means the quantities increased from 350 million cubic feet of gas to 400 million cubic feet of gas per day, according to a statement by Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Molla.

Zohr is expected to provide the Egyptian economy with a significant boost estimated at $2.5 billion annually, with around $12 billion invested in the project.

Eni is anticipating that the field will produce 2.7 billion cubic feet per day by 2019.
Five to seven wells were drilled in the first phase of the project with investments of $4 -8 billion, to be increased to $16 billion by the end of the project.

The field will help secure energy needs of the country that consumes around 6 billion cubic feet of gas a day, with 65 percent going to the electricity sector.

Egypt is expected to stop importing liquefied gas by June 2018, after the production of its giant Zohr gas field began at the end of 2017.

In addition to Zohr, Egypt accomplished three other gas production projects which are Torres and Libra, Atoll, and Norse.

These four projects added 1.6 billion cubic feet of gas per day to raise Egypt’s daily production to 5.5 billion cubic feet a day.