Italian oil company Eni has made a new gas discovery under evaluation in the Nour exploration prospect located in the Nour North Sinai Concession, in the Eastern Egyptian Mediterranean, about 50 km North of the Sinai peninsula.
The Nour-1 New Field Wildcat (NFW), which has led to the discovery, was drilled by the Scarabeo-9 semi-sub in a water depth of 295 meters and reached a total depth of 5,914 meters.
This is the second discovery within a short period. Earlier, Eni revealed it had made “ a major oil discovery” in Block 15/06, in the Agogo exploration prospect, in Angola’s deep water. The new discovery is estimated to contain between 450 and 650 million barrels of light oil in place with further upside.
Nour-1 well found 33 meters of gross sandstone pay with good petrophysical properties and an estimated gas column of 90 meters in the Tineh formation of Oligocene age. The well has not been tested, however an intense and accurate data acquisition has been carried out.
The oil firm signed a concession agreement for exploration in the Nour license in August 2018. In the concession, which is in participation with Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS), Eni is the operator with a 40 percent stake, BP holds a 25 percent stake, Mubadala Petroleum a 20 percent stake while Tharwa Petroleum Company has 15 percent stake of the contractor’s share.
Mubadala bought into Eni’s North Sinai offshore concession back in November 2018 and BP entered the concession in December of the same year.
Nour is a block located in the prolific East Nile Delta Basin of the Mediterranean Sea, approximately 50 km offshore in the Eastern Mediterranean, in water depth ranging from 50 to 400 meters, and covers a total area of 739 km2.
Eni also said it would start the feasibility studies to accelerate the exploitation of these new resources leveraging the synergies with existing facilities and infrastructures, after finalizing the discovery evaluation.
Eni claims to be Egypt’s leading producer with equity above 340,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day that will further grow in 2019 with the ramp up of the Zohr Project to production plateau.
Source: Eni
