Eni starts drilling of Faghour field in Western Desert

CAIRO – 9 May 2018: Italian energy company Eni started the drilling of its second discovered field, Faghour, in its concession in the Western Desert a few days ago, according to an official source in the petroleum sector.

The source said that the drilling now exceeds a depth of 4,000 feet, adding that the company targets to reach a depth of 13,500-14,000 feet.

The cost of drilling one well reaches about $9 million, the source added.

The Ministry of Petroleum announced on Friday, May 4 that the new discovery is located in the A-2X exploration prospect in the Southwest Melieha license, 103 kilometers north of Siwa Oasis in the Faghour area.

The ministry attributed the importance of this discovery to the success of testing new geological layers at more than 5,000 meters in depth, besides motivating international companies to intensify researches in the Western Desert.

Eni announced earlier that the tests in the area revealed an initial production test rate of 2,300 barrels of crude oil per day in addition to 400,000 cubic feet of associated gas in the Western Desert.

The exploratory well has been drilled to a total depth of 5,090 meters and encountered 18 meters of light oil in the Paleozoic sandstones of Dessouky Formation of the Carboniferous age.

IEOC, the subsidiary of Eni, owns a 100-percent stake in the Southwest Melieha license.

In 2015, Eni discovered Zohr gas field, the biggest gas field in the Mediterranean, with an estimated production of 30 trillion cubic feet.

The second phase of Zohr gas field will add around two billion cubic feet per day to production and will be completed before the end of the year, according to Minister of Petroleum Tarek El-Molla.

Egypt plans to stop importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) by the end of fiscal year 2017/2018 by adding production of 1.6 million cubic feet from its latest gas discoveries, including West Delta’s Taurus and Libra fields, as well as the Atoll and Zohr gas fields.