Friday, September 22, 2017

LNG production from Giza, Fayoum fields to reach 500 mln cfpd by end of 2018 - AHRAM ONLINE


Friday 22 Sep 2017

Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum Tarek El-Molla announced on Friday that liquified natual gas (LNG) production from the Giza and Fayoum fields will reach 500-700 million cubic feet per day (cfpd) by the end of 2018.

El-Molla’s statement came during the seventh regular meeting of the committee responsible for following progress of the second phase of the West Delta gas fields on Friday.

Earlier this week, the minister revealed that Egypt is planning to reduce its LNG imports in the fiscal year 2017-18, thanks to expected production from the Zohr gas field, with imports restricted to 80 shipments worth $1.8 billion.



The minister said that work on bringing Zohr online was now 86.5 percent complete, with the first production planned for late 2017.

Developing Zohr, a newly discovered super-giant gas field in the Mediterranean, is part of the ministry's overall plan to increase domestic supplies of natural gas, thus reducing reliance on imports.

Egypt's total domestic natural gas production has now reached 5.2 billion cfpd, following the first phase of gas production from the West Delta's Libra and Nawras fields. The two fields produce a combined 700 million cfpd.

The country's total natural gas consumption is about 6 billion cfpd, of which roughly 65 percent is burned in electricity-generation plants.

Discovered in August 2015 by Italian oil company Eni, Zohr is the largest natural-gas field ever found in the Mediterranean, with an estimated 850 billion cubic metres of gas.

Zohr is expected to produce some 500 million cubic feet (46.5 million cubic metres) of gas by the end of 2017, Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said earlier this year.

Production from the field should help alleviate Egypt's severe energy shortage and save the country billions of dollars spent on imports.

SOURCE