Eni announced new oil discovery in Gulf of Suez offshore Egypt

CAIRO – 25 October 2019: Italian Company Eni announced Friday the discovery of new resources in Abu Rudeis Sidri development lease, in the Gulf of Suez, with estimations to contain about 200 million barrels of oil in place.

The company added that the well would be completed and put into production in the next few days with an expected initial flow rate of about 5.000 barrels per day.

The discovery was made where the operating company Petrobel, equally held by Eni and by the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), drilled an appraisal well of the discovery of Sidri South, announced in July.

“This new and important result continues the positive track record of the "near field" exploration in Eni's historical concessions in Egypt and prove how the use of new play concepts and of the technology allows to re-evaluate areas where exploration was considered having reached a high level of maturity," Eni commented.

According to Eni, Petrobel immediately conceived a rapid development plan for the new discovery with a "fast-track" approach, leveraging on existing infrastructures in the vicinity of the well and maximizing facilities synergies.

It added that this strategy will be applied also in future activities in the Sidri area with the next delineation and development wells connected to the production in a short time.

The Sidri 36 appraisal well, drilled to assess the field continuity westward in a down dip position with respect to Sidri-23 discovery well, encountered an important hydrocarbon column in the clastic sequences of the Nubia Formation (200 meters of hydrocarbon column), the company clarified.

Eni’s CEO Claudio Descalzi stated in September that his company will continue to inject new investments and develop its business in Egypt in the coming period, especially as Egypt represents one of the most important areas for the company's work.

In March, Descalzi said that Eni seeks to pump investments of $3 billion in Egypt during the upcoming period. Descalzi added that the total investments pumped in Noras and Zohr fields so far have reached $8.4 billion, noting that 70 percent of the company’s investments exist in Egypt.

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

Eni has been operating in Egypt since 1954. The current equity production is around 350,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, with expectations to further grow within the year, thanks to the Zohr gas field and to the Baltim SW field ramp-up.