Egypt plans to invest $1.5 billion into drilling 35 natural gas (LNG) wells by 2025, the cabinet said in a statement on Tuesday, citing Petroleum Minister Tarek El-Molla.
It also announced a plan to drill 45 natural exploratory gas wells in the Mediterranean and the Nile Delta with $1.9 billion in investments until mid-2025, according to a Cabinet statement on Tuesday.
Drilling 10 wells between July 2022 and June 2023 ended in discovering the Nargis Offshore Area Concession. The find added reserves of 2.5 trillion cubic feet, according to Tarek El-Molla Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources.
There are plans to drill 25 wells in the Zohr Field area to increase the field capacity, which reached 2.2 billion cubic meters per day. The site is estimated to provide around 40% of Egypt’s total gas production.
El-Molla said last July, 2023 that these new wells would be in the Mediterranean and Nile Delta areas. Egypt intends to produce around 8 million tons of LNG in 2023, from 7.5 million tons last year, in order to meet local and growing demand for gas from its population of 105 million.
Read: Suez oil discovery, exploration, part of the drill for Egypt
British Petroleum
The well drilling news comes hours after British Petroleum (BP) announced it was investing $3.5 bn into gas exploration in Egypt over the next 3 years.
BP CEO Bernard Looney met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El Sissi and El Molla on Monday to discuss the energy company’s plans and operations in Egypt.
BP plans to drill four natural gas wells in Q4, 2023. Two of them will be in the Raven offshore field in the north Alexandria and western Mediterranean offshore blocks. The other two will be in the King Mariout and West Qir areas.
BP has been operating in Egypt for 60 years and produces nearly 60% of the country’s gas through a joint venture with the Pharaonic Petroleum Company and Petrobel in the eastern Nile Delta. It does so as well as through west Nile Delta gas development which it operates solely as BP.
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