Cairo - President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi stressed on the importance of committing to the designed timeline for the start of production from Zohr natural gas field, according to a statement from the presidency on Sunday. This came during Sisi's meeting with Italian energy company Eni's CEO Claudio Descalzi. During the meeting, Descalzi reviewed his company's works to develop the gas field and what have been achieved so far in terms of infrastructure, digging wells and establishing a control system, in cooperation with a number of Egyptian companies. Descalzi said that his company seeks to swiftly develop the field so that it starts production by the end of this year. President El-Sisi has directed the petroleum ministry and its affiliates to cooperate with Eni and eliminate any obstacles that might hinder the development of the field. Zohr is the largest natural gas field found in the Mediterranean and was discovered in 2015 by Eni. The field has an area of 100 square meters at a depth of 1,450 meters. Investing around $10 billion in the project, Eni is estimating total output of the field to be approximately 30 trillion cubic feet of gas. The field will start production through three phases. The first will be launched in a few months with an output of one billion cubic feet per day (ft2). When all seven fields are complete by 2019, this amount will increase to 2.7 billion ft2. The field is expected to secure Egypt's domestic needs of gas after it has become a net importer of gas following a cut in production after the January revolution.
