Egypt aims to start natural gas production from the second phase of the West Nile Delta (WND), the largest gas field in the Mediterranean Sea, in late 2018, Oil Minister said Wednesday. Minister Tarek el-Molla made these remarks during a meeting with a delegation from Germany's DEA group headed by its chief executive Thomas Rappuhn. Gas extraction from the West Delta fields is being carried out in cooperation with British Petroleum (BP) and DEA group. The West Nile Delta development includes five offshore gas fields which are planned to have in 2019. It involves the development of gas and condensate fields located within West Mediterranean Deepwater concessions approximately 75 kilometres off the coast of Alexandria. The project is expected to cover one quarter of Egypt's gas needs upon the completion of all phases, with a combined production of up to almost 1.5 billion cubic feet a day (bcf/d). In May, BP announced that the start of the first phase of gas production from WND's first two fields, Taurus and Libra, currently producing 700 million standard cubic feet of gas a day to the Egyptian national gas grid. In March 2015, the two European companies, BP and DEA inked the final agreement of the project with the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum, General Petroleum Corporation and the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company, investing $12 billion for the first phase.
