The Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Co. (EGAS) is holding intensive meetings with Italian Eni officials to speed up linking the new Zohr field discovery in the Shorouk concession area of theMediterranean Sea to the national grid. A prominent official at EGAS said a meeting was recently held with Eni officials to discuss the production plan, and to negotiate speeding up the process, and increasing the gas volume that will be pumped in the first phase of the project. He added that initial production from the field will begin in 2017. The reserves of the new Eni discovery are estimated at about 30tr cubic feet. The official said beginning production early will coincide with the first phase of the project of developing the North Alexandria sections, affiliated to British Petroleum. The North Alexandria development project would have capacity of 200m cubic feet per day by September 2017, which would become 400m cubic feet by October 2017. He explained that linking both projects to the national network of gases will contribute to decreasing the gap between local production and consumption. This gap is estimated at about 3bn cubic feet per day. The official added that Eni will complete the plan for developing the new exploration site in three years, and will drill 20 wells in the concession area in the deep waters to implement the development process. He added that Eni has not yet reached the depths announced for drilling in the Zohr field, which are more than 10,000 metres. Another gas reserve could be discovered when these depths are reached. The Zohr field was found at a depth of only 4,300 metres. The agreement to develop the Shourouk concession that was signed between EGAS and Eni includes reserving 40% of the total explored gas for recovering the investments of the foreign partner in the project, including research and development. The remaining 60% will be divided into 65% for the Egyptian government and 35% for Eni. The percentage reserved for recovering the expenditures of the foreign partner will go to the Egyptian government after expenditures are recovered, according to the agreement.
