EMC 2021 . 2021 SEPT 14-16 . NICOSIA
16 MAY, 2019
Marwa Abo AlMajd
Egypt’s petroleum sector is set to attract $10 billion of investment in its coming financial year, adding to the $30 billion that has been invested over the past three years, according to an industry head.
Mohamed Saad, head of the oil chamber at the Federation of Egyptian Industries, told Zawya last week investments in current and past financial years have “helped Egypt to achieve self-sufficiency” in natural gas production . Egypt’s new financial year begins on July 1.
Saad said that the natural gas sector had represented “an overload” on the state in the past as a result of weak production, but said the situation had now transformed, with the country transitioning from self-sufficiency towards becoming a natural gas exporter.
“During 2018 Egypt was able to achieve self-sufficiency of gas, where the volume of domestic production (rose) to 6.6 billion cubic feet per day, while the total volume of investments for oil and gas exploration and the development of fields producing them in 2018 amounted to about $10 billion,” he said.
“Shell , Eni And Mobil are playing an important role in pumping these investments in Egyptian petroleum sector,” he said.
MAY 16, 2019 13:09 ANNA AHRONHEIM
A senior American official mediating the maritime border dispute between Israel and Lebanon is in Tel Aviv in a push to resolve a maritime border dispute between the two enemy countries.
Acting US Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield was in Beirut on Wednesday and met with Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun and discussed bilateral relations and the latest local and regional developments, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.
The two also discussed a “working mechanism” to define maritime borders between Israel and Lebanon, NNA said.
"The demarcation of the southern territorial and maritime borders would reinforce stability along the frontier," Aoun was quoting as telling Satterfield, and called on Washington to "contribute to reaching this goal, especially to respect Lebanon's... right to drill for oil and gas.”
According to diplomatic sources quoted by Lebanon’s NNA, Lebanon had received "positive signals of an American desire to play the role of mediator between Beirut and Tel Aviv."
15.05.2019 : 18:49
Katerina Sokou
‘We hope that the energy developments in the region, and in Cyprus in particular, will be an incentive for Turkey to return to the negotiating table and help solve the Cyprus problem,’ Yiorgos Lakkotrypis told Kathimerini in an interview.
As Turkey raises the stakes in the Eastern Mediterranean with violations and threats of drilling in Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), the Cypriot minister of energy, commerce, industry and tourism notes that “the best response is for us to continue to implement our energy strategy unfettered.”
Indeed, last weekend Yiorgos Lakkotrypis confirmed that the Republic of Cyprus is close to agreement with the Total-ENI joint venture for offshore drilling in another area. In an exclusive interview with Kathimerini, Lakkotrypis focused on the merits of regional partnerships such as the East Med Gas Forum and the role of the European Union and the United States in ensuring stability for investors. As for the Turkish claims, he stressed that Cyprus “is ready for all scenarios” but added that “we need to avoid playing the destabilization game that Turkey is pursuing.”
14 MAY 2019 : 15:45
Kathimerini reports that stakeholders in the Aphrodite gas field have agreed to commit natural gas from Cyprus’ Block 12 to Egypt’s LNG facilities from where it will be exported to international markets. A few legal details remain and are expected to be clarified within days.
Noble Energy, Royal Dutch Shell and Delek Drilling aim to utilize Egypt’s existing LNG facilities to speed up commercialization of Aphrodite.
The Aphrodite field is located 160 km south of Limassol and 30 km northwest of the Leviathan field. The field was discovered following drilling of the A-1 discovery well, which began on 20 September 2011, continued for 116 days, and reached a depth of 5,860 meters below sea level.
Block 12 is expected to hold 3.6 to 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The field is estimated to produce about 800 million cubic feet per day in the first production phase, according to Delek.
13 MAY 2019
Drilling the first exploration well in Lebanon’s offshore Block 4 is planned to start in December 2019 and Block 9 in December 2020, according to a report by French oil and gas company Total.
In April, Energy Minister Nada Boustani had announced the site in Block 4 where the first drilling would take place in Lebanon’s bid to discover offshore oil and gas resources in its territories.
The site sits just north of Beirut.
“A mobile offshore drilling unit will be mobilized to Block 4 and the exploration well(s) will be drilled vertically in [an] area … where depths range from 1,450 meters to 1,760 meters,” Total’s report said.
The target gas reservoir’s drilling operations will be supported by a logistics base in Beirut Port.
Block 4 will see the drilling of one exploration well, and possibly a second one. A potential appraisal well will also be drilled, “depending upon the results of the previous exploration wells,” the report said.
