As usual, Petrobel comes first in the production rankings

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
 
Condensates bp
Tonn
Barrel
111406
0
0
0
0
0
18610758
0
0
0
0
0
0
244534800
14716346
305797
3440215
262691361
61814234
63372400
14579117
433929
4881704
144647455
1798936
23144400
1809540
70157
789269
27542145
46716540
1315600
585771
118259
1330415
49948326
19898854
918200
524960
67704
761670
22103684
148950728
333285400
32215734
995846
11203273
506932971

Companies’ Production from 1/7/2009 to 31/3/2010

                                   Crude Oil  
Company
Oil pb
Condensates pb
Total Production pb
Plan pb
Percentage
 
RASHPETCO
0.00
119186
119186
137417
86.73

 

Al Amrayah Factory
0.00
169698
169698
180680
93.92
Pharaonic
0.00
306742
306742
838860
36.57
Western Desert Gas Complex
0.00
444187
444187
339759
130.74
PETROBEL
31518016
10834521
42352537
42472884
99.72
GUPCO
26000930
695092
26696022
30823732
86.61
Khalda
19214556
10254212
29468768
25803332
114.21
Agiba
11818855
40806
11859661
13868615
85.51
GPC
11109368
79373
11188741
13843558
80.82
Qarun
13789958
0.00
13789958
12997392
106.10
Suez Oil
4427458
119862
4547320
5437956
83.62
Badr El Din Petroleum
5205845
3162610
8368455
7657659
109.28
South Daabahaa
3061791
165092
3226883
3647488
88.47
GEMPETCO
1751000
0.00
1751000
3063106
57.16
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

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