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| Workers on platform at Zohr field (Source: Eni) |
CAIRO – The Mediterranean’s largest gas field Zohr will start production in the second half of November with a production capacity of 350 million cubic feet (mmcf) of gas per day, a source in the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) said Saturday.
He expects production to be doubled in two months to reach some 700 mmcf per day, increasing to one billion cubic feet before the end of the first quarter of 2018.
The source further said that President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi’s directions had led to the elimination of any obstacle that stood in the way of developing the field, saying that finishing the field’s development works in two years is an “accomplishment”.
Zhor field was discovered in 2015 by Italian energy company Eni and is expected to save Egypt some $1 billion annually in gas imports.
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.
Egypt produces 5.1 billion cubic feet of gas daily after several fields have started production. The country consumes around six billion cubic feet of gas a day, 65 percent of which go to the electricity sector.
