Egypt to tender four LNG cargoes in April as it aims to become regional gas hub - THE NATIONAL / FORBES

March 15, 2019 04:33 PMSagging domestic production had forced the North African state to halt most exports of LNG in 2014

Egypt indicated it’s ready to rejoin the club of major exporters of liquefied natural gas, making the biggest offer to supply the market in at least five years.

The state gas company EGAS is tendered to sell four cargoes of LNG for loading in April, three people with direct knowledge of the matter said. The bids are due March 18 and valid until March 25, according to the people, who asked not to be named because details of the tendering process is confidential.

Extra supplies from Egypt would hit a market already battling with spot prices for the super-chilled fuel trading at the lowest level since July 2017 following a mild winter that curbed demand across Europe and Asia. The US, Russia and Australia all are contributing to a glut, starting new plants to export the fuel and build market share.

Eni announces a new gas discovery in the Nour prospect, Offshore Egypt - ENI

14/03/2019 11:15

Eni announces a new gas discovery under evaluation in the Nour exploration prospect located in Eastern Egyptian Mediterranean. Feasibility studies in order to accelerate the exploitation of these new resources leveraging the synergies with existing facilities will start after finalizing the discovery evaluation

San Donato Milanese (Milan), 14 March 2019 – Eni announces a new gas discovery under evaluation in the Nour exploration prospect located in the Nour North Sinai Concession, in the Eastern Egyptian Mediterranean, about 50 km North of the Sinai peninsula.

The Nour-1 New Field Wildcat (NFW), which has led to the discovery, was drilled by the Scarabeo-9 semi-sub in a water depth of 295 meters and reached a total depth of 5,914 meters.

Nour-1 well found 33 meters of gross sandstone pay with good petrophysical properties and an estimated gas column of 90 meters in the Tineh formation of Oligocene age. The well has not been tested, however an intense and accurate data acquisition has been carried out.

Exclusive: Exxon eyes Israel gas bid in major Middle East shift - REUTERS

MARCH 13, 2019 / 10:28 PM

Ron Bousso

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp is considering exploring for oil and gas in Israel, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter, in what would make Exxon the first oil major to operate in the country still technically at war with Gulf Arab states.

A number of large gas discoveries offshore Israel and in nearby eastern Mediterranean waters in the last decade have made Israel a potentially lucrative prospect for big energy firms. The region is emerging as a new hot spot for gas exploration and production.

Until those discoveries, Israel was believed to be sitting on scant oil and gas reserves. There was little reason for energy firms to explore for energy in Israel and risk complicating operations and future investments in nearby Arab countries that hold some of the world’s largest energy reserves.

Cyprus, Noble Energy conclude deal on exploiting natural gas field - XINHUA

2019-03-13 04:20:47|Editor: yan

NICOSIA, March 12 (Xinhua) -- Cyprus and a consortium led by U.S.-based Noble Energy company have concluded an agreement on the terms of exploiting a natural gas field from which gas will be exported to Egypt, Cypriot state television reported on Tuesday.

Citing a competent government source, it said the two sides have ironed out pending issues relating to the ratio of participation of the sides involved in the revenue from the selling of natural gas, adding that what is left is to couch the deal in legal jargon.

Noble Energy leads the operation for sending gas to Egypt after building an undersea pipe, in association with British Gas and Israeli Delek Drilling, each of the three companies holding about one third of the share.

Noble Energy asked the Cypriot government last year to renegotiate the revenue sharing agreement for the 4.5 trillion cubic feet Aphrodite gas finding.

Aphrodite lies in block 12 of Cyprus's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and it is Cyprus's first gas finding, discovered in 2011.

Egypt Looks to Offshore Gas Field for Growth and Influence - THE NEW YORK TIMES

March 11, 2019

Clifford Krauss and Declan Walsh

CAIRO — President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi likes to flaunt his plans for modernizing Egypt, like the flashy new administrative capital rising from the desert outside Cairo. But most Egyptians view his rule as a time of painful belt-tightening, with soaring inflation, a currency crash and cuts to subsidies that have made fuel, electricity and water more expensive.

Now there is a ray of hope emerging a hundred miles offshore.

It comes in the form of a windfall natural gas discovery with the potential to lift Egypt’s limping economy, build a new commercial alliance with Israel and maybe, even, revive the country’s diminished regional clout.

Egypt’s gas push is part of a tectonic shift in energy and geopolitics. Natural gas, long a poor cousin to oil, is gaining importance and becoming a tool for countries to leverage power and prestige. Advances in the shipping of liquefied gas have made it a global fuel and strengthened the hand of countries that until recently were not major energy exporters, including the United States and now Egypt.

Tough choices: how to monetise Cyprus’ gas - CYPRUS MAIL

ENI's Carlo Vito Russo and Alessandro Barberis with Energy Minister
Giorgos Lakkotrypis at the seminar

MARCH 10, 2019

Charles Ellinas

Should Cyprus pipe gas to Egypt or build a LNG plant at Vasiliko?

The future of Cyprus’ and the East Med’s gas discoveries was one of the key aims of the annual East Med Gas Conference (EMGC) held in Nicosia this week.

Organised by the US Gulf Energy Information, the conference was well attended, with a rich programme covering the state of the East Med, challenges in exploration and production of the region’s resources, energy security and Cyprus as an oil and gas service centre.

The conference was opened by Energy Minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis, who gave an overview of the results from block 10 and future plans. He said that Glafcos, the results of which were announced last week, is a high quality reservoir, with in-place gas estimated to be 5-8 trillion cubic feet (tcf), with recoverability expected to be high.

Things Are About to Change: Oil and Gas Have Been Found in the Eastern Mediterranean - THE NATIONAL INTEREST

March 10, 2019

Tony Chavez

Large quantities of oil and natural gas have been discovered in the East Med and the race to extract them has begun. These hydrocarbon finds hold the potential to build regional stability and to bolster the economies of important US allies and partners, all of which is in the interest of the United States. But these discoveries could just as easily stoke further instability and conflict if nations default to historic resentments and if regional powers jockey to monopolize on or block access to this strategic treasure.

Extending from Israel and Egypt in the East and South to Turkey, Greece and Italy in the North and West, the Eastern Mediterranean has long been an economically dynamic and politically important region for the United States and its NATO allies. It is about to become even more important.

Large quantities of oil and natural gas have been discovered in the East Med and the race to extract them has begun. These hydrocarbon finds hold the potential to build regional stability and to bolster the economies of important U.S. allies and partners, all of which is in the interest of the United States. But these discoveries could just as easily stoke further instability and conflict if nations default to historic resentments and if regional powers jockey to monopolize on or block access to this strategic treasure.

Egypt launches licensing round for Red Sea oil and gas exploration - THE NATIONAL

March 10, 2019

Jennifer Gnana

Saudi Arabia said last week that it had found "large volumes" of gas offshore
Egypt will look to incentivise exploration in the Red Sea area, which is expected to include unconventional resources.

Egypt has tendered 10 blocks offshore the Red Sea as it looks to duplicate its successes in the Eastern Mediterranean, which led to a gas bonanza ending the country’s imports for the fuel.

The South Valley Egyptian Petroleum Holding Company (Ganope) invited companies on Sunday to review and purchase technical data, with August 1 set as the closing date for bids.

The announcement follows Egypt’s successful closing of one it largest ever bid rounds, which saw the award of 12 licences and marked the entry of US major Exxon in the search for the country’s hydrocarbons. Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous state struck gold in recent years thanks to the discovery of the massive Zohr field by Italian energy major Eni in 2016 in the Eastern Mediterranean. The find sparked search for more hydrocarbon resources along the Nile Delta and western desert as the North African state looked to leverage these discoveries to become a net exporter of gas, particularly to markets in Europe.