Schlumberger invests $60M in Egypt’s petroleum, gas sector

CAIRO – 18 April 2018: Schlumberger Company has invested $60 million to build a center to improve the operation capacity, offer competitive services and ease the availability of information exchange in the petroleum and gas industry in Egypt, according to Hussein el-Ghazawy, general manager of the company.

Ghazawy said in his speech at the ninth edition of the Mediterranean Offshore Conference and Exhibition (MOC 2018) in Alexandria, that Egypt is qualified to implement its national project to become a regional hub of gas and oil, in light of its recent discoveries, vision of leadership, geographical location, infrastructure and facilities for liquefied natural gas, skilled labor, and issuance of new investment and gas laws.

He pointed out that the company is committed to developing oil and gas resources in its areas of operation in the Nile and Mediterranean basins, where it has been operating for 15 years, as well as applying the latest technologies in the fields of research and exploration and encouraging investment in scientific research in all stages of the oil and gas industry.

In 2015, the Italian company Eni discovered the Zohr gas field in the Shorouk concession, approximately 190 kilometers north of Port Said in an area of 100 square meters (39 square miles) and at a depth of 1,450 meters (4,760 feet).

The total gas in place at the Zohr gas field is around 850 billion cubic meters (30 trillion cubic feet).

In addition to Zohr, Egypt accomplished three other gas production projects: Torres and Libra, Atoll, and Norse.

These four projects added 1.6 billion cubic feet of gas per day to raise Egypt’s daily production to 5.5 billion cubic feet per day.

The country's total natural gas consumption is about 6 billion cubic feet per day, of which roughly 65 percent goes to the electricity sector.

The new discoveries are expected to turn Egypt into a net exporter of natural gas, as the country is expected to halt gas imports by mid-2018.

Egypt passed a new investment law in 2017 that offers foreign investors a bundle of incentives that include tax breaks and rebates. It also deals with bureaucratic problems, promises the simplification of procedures and provides guarantees for investors.

The new gas law allows the private sector to import natural gas from several countries, such as Cyprus, via pipelines or ships.