Baker Hughes awarded subsea contract for phase 2 of Zohr

CAIRO - 9 Sep 2017: Petroleum Minister Tarek el-Molla witnessed on Saturday the signing of a subsea contract between Baker Hughes (BHGE), a General Electric company, and Belayim Petroleum Company (Petrobel) for the development of phase two of Egypt’s Zohr gas field, according to a statement from the Petroleum Ministry.

Under the contract, BHGE will provide project management, engineering procurement, fabrication, construction, testing and transportation of a subsea production system, including seven manifolds, tie-in systems, long offset subsea and topside control systems, SemStar5 HIPPS (high integrity pressure protection) Systems, workover systems and tools. It will also support the installation, commissioning and start-up operations.

Molla said that the new contract comes in light of the ministry’s efforts to complete development works of Zohr field, whose first phase is set to start operations before year-end.

The contract also signals the importance of cooperation with international leading oilfield services companies to benefit from their expertise and technological solutions, he added.

“This landmark agreement reinforces our commitment to provide competitive offerings for our partners, strengthened by BHGE’s local presence and cutting-edge technology,” Lorenzo Simonelli, president and CEO of BHGE, said.

He added that Zohr field is one of the most significant developments of its kind and that it has the potential to meet Egypt’s increasing gas demand and save the country billions of dollars in gas imports.

Atef Hassan, Chairman and Managing Director of Petrobel, said that the partnership with BHGE comes on the back of the company’s leading investment and expertise across oilfield services and equipment.

Zohr is the largest natural gas field found in the Mediterranean and was discovered in 2015 by Italian energy company Eni. 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.

The field is expected to secure Egypt’s domestic needs of gas after it has become a net importer of gas following a cut in production after the January revolution.