Italy's Eni has upgraded the potential production of the Egyptian Nile Delta gas field, Baltim South West, to 1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas, the company stated on its website on Thursday. The Baltim South West field is located in the conventional waters of the Nile Delta, in water 25 metres deep, 12 km from the coastline and just 10 km from the Nooros field, discovered in July 2015 and already in production. The group said that with the new potential rise, the gas potential of the so-called “Great Nooros Area” reaches 3 Tcf of gas in place, of which about 2 Tcf are in the Nooros field, while the remaining are in the new independent discovery of Baltim South West. in June that the that the rise of the potential production following the results of the appraisal well Baltim South West 2X, drilled immediately after the successful drilling of the discovery well Baltim South West 1X. The Rome-based and globally renowned group holds a 50 percent stake in the license of Baltim South through its subsidiary IOEC, while BP holds the remaining stake. The operator is Petrobel, a joint venture between IEOC and the state company Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC). Eni has been operating in Egypt since 1954 with current production of about 205.000 Barrels of oil equivalent per day. The Egyptian petroleum minister Tarek El-Molla said in May that the country would see an increase its natural gas production to between 5.5 and 6 billion cubic feet per day (cfd) by the end of 2019, up from the current 3.9 billion cfd. Egypt currently has 12 natural gas field development projects underway worth a total of $33 billion in investment, El-Molla said. The three largest projects, which include the mammoth Mediterranean gas field Zohr discovered by Italy's Eni last year, are expected to collectively bring 4.6 billion cfd online by the start of 2019.
