The leap in Egypt’s gas output over the last 18 months has been spectacular – having slumped below 4bn cfd in mid-2016, by the end of 2017 output had rebounded to 5.6bn cfd, just shy of 6bn cfd demand (MEES, 16 February). Oil Minister Tarek El Molla’s target of achieving self-sufficiency, ending LNG imports, by end-2018 looks like a real possibility.
This has come thanks to a series of key gas discoveries in the deepwater Mediterranean – of which Eni’s 2015 Zohr gas find, which came online late last year, has been the largest (MEES, 15 December 2017). The Mediterranean deepwater remains the focus of ongoing ‘high impact’ exploration in the country. But the expectations are that further discoveries will also be gas. (CONTINUED - 1490 WORDS)
