The Western Desert Operating Petroleum Company (WEPCO) has successfully increased crude oil production at the Badr-1 field to over 7,500 barrels per day (bbl/d), representing more than a tenfold increase from the 800 bbl/d recorded when the company first assumed management of the site.

The achievement was highlighted by Mohamed Elghamry, Senior Exploration Geophysicist at Badr Petroleum Company, a subsidiary of WEPCO, during a recent episode of Petrocast, the podcast sponsored by the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources(MoMPR). Elghamry noted that the production surge is part of the MoMPR’s strategy to intensify exploration and leverage modern technology to revitalise brownfields.

According to Elghamry, the company also successfully expanded the field’s extractable reserves from 3 million barrels to 36 million barrels, with 20 million barrels already produced to date.

The growth was largely driven by a technical re-evaluation of dry fields originally drilled in the 1980s. Using 2025 seismic and drilling technologies, WEPCO engineers successfully re-entered and completed these previously unproductive wells.

Additionally, the field has commenced natural gas production for the first time in 40 years. This followed the successful drilling of three exploratory wells—10-1X, 10-2X, and BED 15-31—that uncovered previously untapped natural gas reservoirs. The 10-2X well yielded an initial output of approximately 20 million cubic feet of natural gas per day (mmcf/d), while the BED 15-31 well in the Badr-15 area added 16 mmcf/d and 750 barrels of condensate per day (bbl/d) to the national grid.

WEPCO is partnering with the Canadian firm TAG Oil in the development of unconventional resources in the Western Desert, targeting the Abu Roash “F” (ARF) formation.

Elghamry revealed that through this cooperation, the drilling of the T100 horizontal well has already been completed with promising results, with a second well scheduled for drilling soon to complete the evaluation phase.