Why starting production from Zohr is a leap for Egypt’s economy

CAIRO – 16 December 2017: The production from the Mediterranean’s largest gas field Zohr, which officially began production on Saturday, is a milestone in the history of Egypt’s energy industry. Egypt Today sheds light on how the economy will benefit from the project.

Petroleum Minister Tarek el-Molla said in a statement on Saturday that production from Zohr has officially started after managing to pump gas from the field’s offshore wells into the processing plant located in Al-Gameel area in the Port Said governorate.

Discovered in 2015 by Italian energy company Eni, the Zohr gas 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 initial production rate will stand at 350 million cubic feet daily, the statement said, adding the first phase of the project will be finalized in June 2018, when production will hit more than one billion cubic feet a day.

This will contribute to Egypt achieving self-sufficiency from natural gas and reducing imports. The field is expected to save Egypt some $1 billion annually in gas imports.

The second phase of the project will be finalized by the end of 2019, when production is expected to reach 2.7 billion cubic feet a day.

Egypt’s own natural gas output rose to about 5.1 billion cubic feet per day in 2017 from 4.4 billion cubic feet in 2016 with the start of production from the first phase of BP’s North Alexandria project.

The country has been seeking to speed up production from recently discovered fields, with an eye to halting imports by 2019 and achieving self-sufficiency.