The continuous efforts of the Ministry of Petroleum to overcome any obstacle that hinders its production plan reflect the officials’ targets to keep high levels of oil and gas production. Despite all speculations claiming the slow down of such attempts, Egypt has witnessed a relative progress in its oil and gas production rates since the beginning of this year
In the first half of the current fiscal year of 2009-2010, the oil and gas industry achieved a major growth in most of the areas, whether in the Mediterranean Sea, the Western Desert, the Gulf of Suez or the Eastern Desert. The ongoing exploration operations had a role boosting the production rate of most of the companies. Nevertheless, development operations have as well contributed to this production rate increase thanks to the ambitious drilling plans set by the companies at the beginning of this year. The country’s oil and condensates production stands at the average of 7000,000 barrels per day, while daily gas production counts for 6.5 billion cubic feet.
Amid the vigorous competition between companies in terms of production, Belayim Petroleum Company (Petrobel) takes the lead as the top producing company, followed by the Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company (GUPCO) and Khalda Petroleum Company (KPC) comes in the third place. This latter company saw remarkable progress, as a result of the late discoveries achieved in the Western Desert and the full-fledged production plan that the company adopted to increase its production levels.
The fourth place in the list of top producers is reserved to Agiba Petroleum Company, while the fifth place goes to the General Petroleum Company (GPC), which gives positive indication on the growing activity of the company especially that there were a lot voting in favor of selling the company’s fields to foreign partners to invest it, but the company’s plan to invest its own fields in the Gulf of Suez helped keeping the production steady.
Qarun Petroleum Company (QPC), a joint venture between the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) and Apache Corporation, which reflects an impression that Apache achieved success with both its joint venture companies of Khalda and Qarun, to deny any rumors of Apache leaving Egypt as a result of not getting paid by the EGPC for its share of the oil and gas produced from the well. Moreover, Apache’s records give notion on the commitment of EGPC towards the foreign partners, especially with Apache as they allocated $1-billion investments into the Egyptian petroleum sector at the beginning of this year.
From the seventh till the tenth rank, the list is as follows: Suez Oil Company (SUCO) comes seventh, followed by Badr El Din Petroleum Company (BAPETCO), then the South Dabaa Petroleum Company (DAPETCO), and GEMSA Petroleum Company (GEMPETCO).
With a closer look to gas production, the Rashid Petroleum Company (Rashpetco) flied solo on the top of companies producing gas, as it produces 2000 million cubic feet annually, which represents 30% of Egypt’s total gas production.
“Keeping the production steady at a certain rate is a result to the concentrated work of the companies working in the Egyptian market to drill more exploratory wells and development wells,” said the EGPC sources to EOG.
They also highlighted the effect of the speedy placing of explored ones on the production line. In addition to using the production facilities of the firms located in the same area and that worked as an indicator to the progress happening in the oil and gas sector in Egypt despite the crisis that hit the world, they emphasized.
On the Western Desert level, Egypt produced 618.14234 barrels of oil from the 1st of July 2009 till the 31st of March 2010. Gulf of Suez came 2nd with 467.16540 barrels of oil. Sinai came 3rd with 198.98854 barrels of oil, Eastern Desert came in the fourth spot by 186.10758 barrels, and Delta came with 111.406 barrels.
The Western Desert has become a focal center for major investors, this is due to the way it attracts most of the companies working in the sector, which indistinguishable with Eng. Sameh Fahmy’s word in the start of this year, describing the Western Desert as the future of petrol in Egypt.
Most of the companies adopted a similar plan of drilling more exploratory and development wells, especially with the late discoveries made in Egypt, which helped into bringing more foreign companies into the country, and winning acquisitions in the area of the Western Desert, Mediterranean, and the Delta, such as the Norwegian energy company Statoil and the state company of Ukraine Naftogaz.
“We are planning to boost our oil production from Gebel El Zeit development field in the Gulf of Suez, during the current year of 2010-2011,” said Eng. Saad Eldin Moustafa, Petrozeit CEO, in exclusive statements to Egypt Oil & Gas (EOG).
He pointed that the production plan is aiming to reach a production rate of 850 barrels of oil per day by the end of 2011, compared to last year’s production of 700 barrels per day.
He added to EOG, that his company managed to succeed more than 120% of the adopted plan, by developing Ras El Ush-3 well with cost reached up to $100,000.
He added that two of the most important wells drilled are Ras El Ush-8 and Ras El Ush-10 from the layers of Nobia sandstone and Mattlah.
He also added that Petrozeit production policy is currently standing on water injection of the Nobia sandstone to protect the reservoir pressure. The project’s investments reached up to $4 million from the finance plan of the company for production.
Moustafa said that Ras El Ush 8 and 12 are considered two of the most important wells that produce crude oil. “EGPC, EGAS or Ganope always help the petroleum companies to extract the oil and gas from each company’s acquisition area, to keep the production steady at a certain rate,” Moustafa elaborated. “Any of these authorities encourage the companies by giving advanced facilities and promotions to help more companies entering the sector.”
Petrozeit is a joint venture between the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) and Dover Petroleum of Canada, a publicly traded company that is presently focused on exploration and development in the Gulf of Suez.
On the other hand, Petroshahd production plan from its acquisition area for the current fiscal year of 2010-2011 concludes producing 6520 barrels of oil by the end of 2011.
PetroShahd’s production depends on its El Zahraa field, Shahd South-East field, and Diaa field. El Zahraa field produces 3200 barrel, Shahd produces 2500 barrel per day, in addition to Diaa field which produces 500 barrels per day.
The company output of crude oil in the Western Desert reached 5298 barrels per day of oil, compared to the last year of 3500 barrel per day.
It is worth mentioning that PetroShahd is a joint venture company between EGPC and the Chilean firm Sipetrol.
AS for Zafrana Oil Co., Geologist Mohamed Talat, board member and assistant exploration to the CEO, told EOG that his company is aiming to boost its production of crude oil in the coming years, as this year’s output reached up to 5300 barrels from its new marine platforms.
He added that Zafrana is using the latest technologies to raise its production through using the horizontal water drilling as the company drilled 5 horizontal wells, which gives more opportunity to find more production in one layer.
Eng. Ezz Eldin Mohamed, CEO of GEMSA Petroleum Company (GEMPETCO), said that his company started working on its production plan in last June and goes on the next year, which aims to boost the production of crude oil from Gemsa field that reaches 2200 barrels per day.
North Sinai Co. For Petroleum (Nospco) is also planning to raise its production from natural gas from its acquisition area in the Mediterranean in the current fiscal year of 2010-2011, which aims reaching a 60 billion cubic feet of gas by the end of next year.
Nospco depends in its production on both Tao and Romana fields, which both produce 180 million cubic feet of gas per day.
Area’s Production
Natural Gas
|
|||
Area
|
Sold by mcf
|
Plan by mcf
|
Percentage
|
Upper Egypt
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
Eastern Desert
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
Mediterranean
|
1222674
|
1378216
|
112.72
|
Western Desert
|
316862
|
342166
|
107.99
|
Delta
|
115722
|
84357
|
72.90
|
Gulf of Suez
|
6578
|
24240
|
368.50
|
Sinai
|
4591
|
4110
|
89.52
|
Total
|
1666427
|
1833089
|
110.00
|
LNG
|
Total Gases & Derivatives pb
|
||||
Oil pb
|
Equivalents pb
|
Companies’ Production from 1/7/2009 to 31/3/2010
Crude Oil | |||||
Company
|
Oil pb
|
Condensates pb
|
Total Production pb
|
Plan pb
|
Percentage
|
Gas & Derivatives
|
|||
Gas & Derivatives pb
|
Plan pb
|
Percentage
|
Total Percentage
|
20155200
|
25041200
|
80.49
|
80.52
|
2150156
|
1783121
|
120.58
|
118.13
|
29132800
|
31561000
|
92.31
|
90.86
|
2339030
|
2467994
|
94.77
|
99.13
|
84508896
|
88359522
|
95.64
|
96.96
|
3529530
|
3984086
|
88.59
|
86.84
|
39164200
|
39675200
|
98.71
|
104.82
|
292988
|
383600
|
76.38
|
85.27
|
649200
|
682200
|
95.16
|
81.50
|
0.00
|
0.00
|
0.00
|
0.00
|
391473
|
1739090
|
22.51
|
68.81
|
20423625
|
19251900
|
106.09
|
107.00
|
987400
|
1918000
|
51.48
|
75.72
|
0.00
|
0.00
|
0.00
|
0.00
|