Egypt officially starts operations of the Mediterranean’s largest gas field
Egypt has officially started operations of the Mediterranean’s largest gas field Zohr Saturday, at a capacity of 350 million cubic feet a day, Petroleum Minister Tarek el-Molla said in a statement.
Molla announced the start of pumping gas from the field’s offshore wells into the processing plant located in AL-Gameel area in Port Said governorate, where the gas is treated and pumped to the national natural gas network.
The minister said that the operation is an important milestone in Egypt’s history of gas industry, after starting production from the field in record time, compared to similar gas discoveries.
The initial production rate will stand at 350 million cubic feet daily, the statement said.
Molla said that 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 achieving self-sufficiency from natural gas and reduce imports, he added. 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.
Discovered in 2015 by Italian energy company Eni, 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.
Egypt produces 5.1 billion cubic feet of gas daily after several fields have started production. The country consumes around six billion cubic feet of gas a day, 65 percent of which go to the electricity sector.
