Eni has made a ‘significant’ oil discovery at the Emry Deep exploration prospect in the Western Desert of Egypt
Oil was discovered when drilling the Emry Deep 1X well in the Meleiha Concession. The well was drilled to a total depth of 3,628m and encountered more than 76m of net pay in multiple good-quality sandstones of the Lower Cretaceous Alam El Bueib Formation.
During production tests the well flowed 3,500 barrels per day (bpd) of high quality oil (41-degree API) and one million standard cubic feet per day of associated gas.
The discovery is now estimated to range from between 150 and 250 million barrels of oil in place and will require further appraisal drilling.
The drilling of the well is part of Eni's strategy to refocus exploration activities in Egypt by targeting deeper plays in the Western Desert.
The full field development foresees an early production phase from the current well. This will be followed by the drilling of other development wells in 2012 to reach a production level of approximately 10,000 bpd in the coming months.
Production will be routed to treatment facilities near the Meleiha field resulting in a short time to market.
Eni said that this result confirmed 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 owns a 56 per cent working interest in the Meleiha Concession through its affiliate International Egyptian Oil Company (IEOC), with partners Lukoil (24 per cent) and Mitsui (20 per cent).
Agiba, a joint operating company owned by IEOC (40 per cent), Mitsui (10 per cent) and EGPC (50 per cent), is the operator of the Emry Deep project.
