Egypt's Zohr '80% Complete': Eni
Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi met Egypt's prime minister Sherif Ismail August 1 on the latest leg of his North African tour.
Eni said the meeting with Ismail focused primarily on the future of Zohr's mega offshore gas field and its positive impact on the economy.
"Thanks to the significant operational synergies that Eni has been able to exploit with its facilities in the area, the development of Zohr is 80% complete less than two years after the discovery was made, a record in the oil [and gas] industry," noted Eni.
"With a potential of 850bn m3 of gas in place, not only will Zohr be able to satisfy almost all of the total domestic gas demand for the coming decades, it will also allow Egypt to return to being a net energy exporter," added Eni. Last week it said the first 1bn ft3/d of Zohr will come onstream late this year.
Earlier August 1, BP reiterated that Zohr, in which it is a minority partner of Eni, is expected online before end-2017. BP CEO Bob Dudley also acknowledged his initial concern that draft US sanctions against Russia could impact the Zohr project, where state-run Rosneft is also a minority partner. However Dudley added that the US sanctions wording had since been changed to avoid "unintended consequences" adding: "We're not aware of any adverse effect in Russia or elsewhere, or on our Rosneft business." BP has a 19.75% stake in Rosneft.
Eni, present in Egypt since 1954, is the country's main producer with net output of 230,000 barrels of oil equivalent/day.
Mark Smedley