The Italian company Eni and the British company BP have finished drilling two wells in the South Baltim field, which is located southeast of the Delta. The production platform is under preparation to link 350m cubic feet of gas daily from the project to the national grid by the beginning of 2018. A source in the petroleum sector told Daily News Egypt that the second well's production is being examined to verify the results of the first well, as to the available quantity of natural gas. Eni and BP plan to develop South Baltim and targets drilling six developing wells at a depth ranging from 3,900-4,000 meters below sea level. South Baltim reserves are estimated at 700bn cubic feet of recoverable gas, the source said. The drilling of the second well is currently underway in the Nile Delta. He added that the reserves are estimated according to the preliminary results of the first well, which are very promising, and that the exact quantities will be verified by the results of the second well's examination. The new discovery is located in the South Baltim development area, east of the Nile Delta and 12km away from the Nourase field. The source explained that this new well is similar in pattern to that of Nourase field, and that more assessment work will be required to determine the total reserves. Nourase field was discovered by Eni in July 2015; it was recently linked to production and currently produces 65,000 barrels of oil equivalent daily. The total production of natural gas in Egypt is roughly 4.17bn cubic feet of gas per day, and 1.3bn feet of gas is imported through the gasification ships in Ain Sokhna port and Jordan's gas line. The natural decline rate of the field's productivity decreased to 45m cubic feet of gas per day for the first time since 2012, instead of 100m cubic feet of gas. This is because most of the wells linked to production recently are new discoveries and the decline rate in them is weak. Source: Daily News Egypt
