ENI Brings Egypt

Italy’s ENI announced today that it has begun producing natural gas from the subsea North Bardawil Field in Egypt’s Mediterranean Sea. The company says the expected maximum production rate will be 2.7 million standard cubic meters per day, approximately 17,000 boepd, of which about 6,000 boepd is ENI’s equity share.

The project consists of two sub-sea wells drilled by the semi-submersible Rig Scarabeo-4, the installation of 24 km of sea line in a water depth ranging between 110 and 350 meters, and the tie-back to the existing production platform Barboni.

Partners on the project include ENIi's affiliate in Egypt IEOC with 60% and Kufpec Ltd with 40%. Petrobel is the JV operator.

ENI reports that it has made investments in cutting edge technology since the North Bardawil discovery, in particular in the sub-sea production system and for the first time in Egypt, it has applied an innovative smart completion system. These results it says were made possible through IEOC and Kufpec with the cooperation of the Ministry of Petroleum and EGPC.

ENI is the top foreign producer in Egypt with 2008 operated production of 522,000 boepd, 240,000 boepd of which was equity production.