Egyptian Minister of Petroleum, Tarek El Molla, visited North Alexandria to followup on project developments in gas fields  located in the Mediterranean’s deep water, 85km away from Rashid city, Egypt Oil&Gas informed citing a press release from the ministry.

BP’s Regional Chief Executive, Hesham Mekawi, accompanied El Molla during his visit to the project’s site. Mekawi said that the development of the wells will be performed according to the latest drilling technologies, via the execution of  21 deep water wells, with depths reaching 1000m below sea level. Additionally, the project will revive Rashid gas processing facility for both Fayoum and Giza fields, as well as develop a new gas processing plant for Raven field. The project also entails the development of  a 35km pipeline as a to link Libra and Taurus to Burullus pipeline, and a 70km pipeline to move gas from Giza, Fayom and Raven to Rashid for processing.

Mekawi added that the project will cost a total of $11b in investments, with early production from Libra and Taurus fields coming online in the third quarter of 2017. They will have an output capacity of about 600mcf/d of gas. The project is expected to yield a total of 1250mcf/d and a range of 20,000-25,000b/d of condensate by 2020.

According to El Molla, the project aims to develop 5 gas fields which are Raven, Taurus , Libra , Fayoum, and Giza fields located in north Alexandria and west Mediterranean. The development project was awarded to a consortium consisting of British Petroleum (BP), German DEA, and the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS), with the aim of improving reserves of 5tcf of gas and 55mb of condensates. El Molla added that the project will aide Egypt in compensating for natural gas decline in existing fields, consequently addressing the gap between gas supply and demand.