ENI Knocks One Off in Western Desert

Egypt saw a new discovery in the Western Desert on the Meleiha Concession. The well, the Emry Deep 1X, was drilled by Italian firm ENI and led to the discovery of oil.

The well was drilled to a total depth of 3,628 meters and encountered over 250 ft of net pay in multiple good-quality sandstones of the Lower Cretaceous "Alam El Bueib" Formation. During production tests the well flowed 3,500 bpd and 1 Mmcf/d of associated gas. The discovery is now estimated to range between 150 and 250 million barrels of oil in place and will require further appraisal drilling.

The full field development foresees an early production phase from the current well which will be followed by the drilling of other development wells in 2012 to reach a production level of approximately 10,000 bpd of oil in the next months. Production will be routed to the nearby treatment facilities of Meleiha field. The short time to market of this discovery is also a result of ENI's strategy to focus on fast track development of conventional assets and those with synergies.

This result confirms that the Meleiha concession still holds significant un-tapped deep exploration potential and that the recently acquired 3D seismic survey has boosted the potential of the deep Lower Cretaceous and Jurassic formations.

ENI holds a 56% working interest in the Meleiha Concession through its affiliate IEOC (International Egyptian Oil Company), with partners Lukoil (24%) and Mitsui (20%). Agiba, a joint operating company owned by IEOC (40%), Mitsui (10%), and EGPC (50%) operates the Emry Deep project.