BP Egypt announced two significant achievements in the Egyptian territories; it has made a significant gas discovery at record depths in the Nile Delta and successfully hit an important crude oil discovery in the North Shadwan concession in the southern part of the Gulf of Suez.
Starting with the gas new find, the Satis discovery is located on the North El Burg Offshore, Nile Delta concession, some 50 km north of Damietta. The well was drilled to a Nile Delta record depth of more than 6,500 meters and is the first significant high pressure, high temperature, offshore Oligocene discovery.
“This is a significant discovery. We are proud of this discovery because it uses cutting edge seismic and drilling technology. These results were made possible through BP’s cooperation with the Ministry of Petroleum to provide new gas discoveries and incremental supply to meet future growth of the gas business in Egypt,” said Hesham Mekawi, President and General Manager of BP Egypt.
It is worth to mention that the parties to the North El Burg Offshore Concession agreement are: BP (operator 50%) and IEOC, the affiliate of ENI in Egypt (50%). Satis was drilled by the Constellation II jack-up rig, in a water depth of 90 meters.
Andy Inglis, BP’s chief executive of Exploration & Production commented, “This is a significant discovery, which will underscore our position as a major producer in the growing Egyptian gas market for many years to come.”
As for the second achievement, the North Shadwan oil discovery is the first new oil discovery in the south-eastern area of the Gulf of Suez in over ten years and is also the first discovery drilled by BP using recently acquired, modern, high-quality ocean bottom cable (OBC) seismic data.
This is BP’s fourth Nubia success since 2001 with all previous discoveries (Saqqara, Edfu and Luli) either under development or already in production.
The NS394-1A exploration well was drilled in shallow water just 7 kilometres from the Hilal field. The well penetrated 68 meters of oil bearing sandstones in the highly productive Nubia formation, and oil samples recovered from the well indicate excellent quality light crude oil.
“This discovery represents a great milestone in BP Egypt and GUPCO’s oil exploration strategy and is a result of our commitment to significant investment in Egypt’s oil industry. This great success was made possible by our long-standing cooperation with the Ministry of Petroleum and EGPC,” stated Mekawi.
(BP Press Release)