Zohr Takes Eni to New Record

Less than a week after gas production from the giant Zohr field reached Egypt's market, Eni said that on December 21 it "reached its all-time production record of 1.92mn barrels of oil equivalent/day."

This was "proof of the success of the integrated exploration and development model that Eni has developed in recent years, and that has allowed a reduction in the time-to-market of new projects while ensuring compliance with initial investment estimates," it added.

In 2017, Eni started production from Angola’s East Hub field, Ghana’s OCTP project, Indonesia’s Jangkrik and – in a record time for the industry – Egypt’s Zohr, the largest gas field ever discovered in the Mediterranean sea, which started production less than two years after its February 2016 final investment decision. Production from these four fields now amounts to around 310,000 boe/d, corresponding to 160,000 boe/d of equity production for Eni, it said.

Eni says the high number of its operated projects, producing over 3.6mn boe/d gross, facilitate a fast-track approach of all of the projects’ phases, from appraisal to engineering to development, ensuring maximum control of project costs, time and risks.

CEO Claudio Descalzi said Eni's "leadership in exploration is now matched by an ability to execute projects among the best in the oil industry. In less than three years, we have put seven giant fields into production, ahead of the expected schedule and reducing costs in the context of extremely difficult prices, while the oil sector was only focused on postponing any development initiative. Once again we reap the benefits of the value of our team’s skills and cohesion."

The company has, since Zohr was found and proven in 2015, adopted a more cautious upstream position, integrating it with its marketing business. It will no longer drill wells without a detailed marketing plan but it is still expecting 3% annual output growth over the next few years.

Earlier December 21, Eni announced it had bought out Shell's operating stake in the undeveloped Evans Shoal gas field offshore Australia, which is eying a potential role in a second Darwin LNG plant.