Empresa Nacional del Petroleo (ENAP), through its international subsidiary Enap Sipetrol S.A., made a new oil discovery in the East Ras Qattara block in Egypt’s Western Desert, with the drilling of the Ghard-1 well. It has already made a previous discovery in this area, with the Shahd-1 well in November 2006.
The Ghard-ST1 well was drilled to a depth of 3,436 meters (11,273 feet) and proved the existence of oil in the lower Bahariya formation. A 10-meter thick zone of interest was proven at a depth of 3,341 meters, which produced light oil of 40.

5 degrees API (i.e. a good-quality light oil), at an initial rate of 327 m3/day (2,026 barrels per day), plus 74,000 m3/day of gas (2.6 million cubic feet a day).
The East Ras Qattara block has been explored since 2004 by a consortium formed by Enap Sipetrol, as operator with a 50.5% participation, and the Australian company Oil Search Limited (49.5%).
With this new exploration success, the company completes its tenth discovery in Egypt and eleventh in the Middle East and North Africa region during the last four years. This achievement, based on the joint work of Egyptian and Chilean professionals, consolidates ENAP’s growth strategy internationally.

(Rigzone)