The official opening of Egypt's super-giant Zohr gas field is set for Wednesday, Mario Bello, Eni representative and Agiba Petroleum Company managing director, said at Al-Ahram's first Energy conference on Tuesday. Agiba is a joint venture between Eni SPA and the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation. On Saturday, Zohr started pumping gas at 350 million cubic feet per day. The mammoth field, discovered in 2015 by Italy's Eni, contains an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet of gas. Pumping operations on the field began on Saturday, bringing the country closer to achieving its goal of self-sufficiency in the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and halting imports by 2019. Experimental operation means that gas is now being pumped from the wells at Zohr field to the pipelines and transferred to the Port Said land refinery before it is linked to the national natural gas grid, petroleum ministry spokesperson Hamdy Abdel-Aziz told Ahram Online earlier. Investments for the first and second stages of the project are estimated at over $12 billion. Once the first stage is completed in June 2018, production will increase to 1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd), meaning Egypt will have achieved self-sufficiency in LNG supply. The second stage is due to be finalised by the end of 2019, with production reaching 2.7 bcfd, Petroleum Minister Tarek El-Molla said.
