The UK’s BP last week agreed to pay Eni $525mn for a 10% stake in the latter’s Shorouk Block in the Egyptian deepwater Mediterranean, reducing the latter’s stake to 90%. The block contains last year’s giant Zohr gas discovery, which has around 32 tcf gas in place, of which 24 tcf is thought to be recoverable.
Eni, which is keen to share $12bn development costs, wants to cut its stake further. “We believe we can operate the field with 50%, that’s my objective,” Mr Descalzi told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Milan last week. “This could happen fairly quickly. In our business that could mean a few months,” Mr Descalzi says. (CONTINUED - 656 WORDS)
