Italian Eni aims to start drilling the 10th well in the Zohr deep-water gas field in the Mediterranean Sea by next January. The estimated cost of the drilling operation will be $300m. A source in the oil sector told Daily News Egypt that the drilling of Zohr's new well will take two months, and will produce up to 200m cubic feet of gas per day(cfd). He explained that the production of both the 9th and 10th wells will be linked to the sixth natural gas processing unit in Zohr, which will be completed in the first quarter (Q1) of 2019, with a capacity of 400m cfd. The production of the 9th well gradually increased to about 250m cfd, bringing the field's total production to 2.25bn cfd. The development of the Zohr field's second phase will be completed by next July, which will increase the total production to about 2.95bn cfd, instead of the estimated 2.7bn in the development plan. The source pointed out that the company aims to invest about $4bn in the development of the second phase, bringing the total investment to $16bn. The ministry of petroleum has succeeded, in cooperation with the Italian partner, in decreasing the specified time for implementing the project. The Zohr production is connected to the new land station in Al-Jameel area in Port Said for processing before pumping it in the national gas grid.
