Egypt: New Gas Discovery in Nooros Zone, Eni, BP Confident More to Come

Egypt’s energy concern could be about to be over following the discovery of a new natural gas field on the Nile Delta coast by Eni and British Petroleum (BP.)

The regional BP president for North Africa, Hesham Mekawi, said the latest discovery located 12km away from the shoreline “is the third discovery along the Nooros trend.”

He expressed satisfaction at the test results while Eni stated that the finding made in the Baltim South included gas-breaking rock with “excellent” reservoir properties 25 meters deep into the river delta. The two companies have a 50% stake each on the Baltim South license.

Several energy discoveries have been made over the years in the Baltim South and Mekawi said “this announcement is another example of BP’s commitment to unlock resources in order to bring critical gas production to Egypt.”

The North African country registered an increase in oil and natural gas investments in 2015 due to the several findings made and Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co, an energy investment bank, said the latest finding is positive given growing domestic demand. Authorities have decided that the gas will be allocated for local consumption in order to cut the importation of natural gas, which takes a heavy toll on the governments’ strictly managed foreign reserves.

Eni is optimistic that more discoveries will be made in the Great Nooros Area and estimates that the zone has a capacity of around 70-80 billion cubic meters of gas. The Zohr discovery made in August and dubbed the largest gas reserve discovered in the Mediterranean Sea is located in the area. Mekawi said the plan “is to utilize existing infrastructure which will accelerate the development of the discovery, and expedite early production start-up.”

Energy issues contributed to the public outcry against the country’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, after his government decided to remove subsidies especially ahead of the summer when consumption is high due to high temperatures. That situation eased his ousting by a military-backed coup d’état led by Sisi.