”The General Petroleum Company (GPC) is working on the rehabilitation of both Bakr and Amer fields aiming to boost production from those two fields,” an official source at the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) told Egypt Oil and Gas Newspaper.

The GPC current production from these fields is 50,000 barrels of crude oil per day, 20,000 of them are the fields’ share.

The source pointed that the GPC is also studying the possibility of coinciding a two-years rig agreement with Sino Tharwa Drilling Company to operate in the land areas of the two fields, as both fields produce most of the company’s share in Ras Gharib area in the Gulf of Suez.

He also added that the rig, Sino Tharwa-4, daily rental cost is $16,000 which is considered higher than the normal amount paid in land rigs since the global crisis started that reached $9,000 to 13,000. “The company will rent another 1500-HP rig, as the GPC owns 21 producing fields.

A total of 15 fields are located in the Eastern Desert and Gulf of Suez, in addition to three fields in the Western Desert, and another three fields in Sinai.”

“The GPC is also in talks to rent an offshore rig for the Gulf of Suez area. The rig will be rented from the Egyptian Drilling Company (EDC) or through a bid round,” added the source. The marine rig is for development operations in the Hamd field, GPC’s newest exploration to date.

It is worth mentioning that the GPC’s primal exploration in the Bakr field was made in April 1958.