Italian oil and gas giant Eni has pulled off the discovery of new resources in the Abu Rudeis Sidri development lease, in the Gulf of Suez, offshore Egypt.

The discovery was made by the Petrobel, the operating company, which is held equally by Eni and the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), through the drilling of an appraisal well of the discovery of Sidri South. The Sidri South discovery was announced in July 2018.

According to Eni, the Sidri 36 appraisal well was drilled to evaluate the field continuity westward in a down-dip position with respect to Sidri-23 discovery well. The Sidri 36 appraisal well intersected a major hydrocarbon column of 200m length in the clastic sequences of the Nubia Formation, said Eni.

Eni discovers new resources in the Abu Rudeis Sidri development lease. Photo courtesy of Federico Leva (BEIC)/Wikipedia.org.

The Italian oil and gas company stated : “This new and important result continues the positive track record of the “near field” exploration in Eni’s historical concessions in Egypt and prove how the use of new play concepts and of the technology allows to re-evaluate areas where exploration was considered having reached a high level of maturity.”

Eni said that the Sidri 36 appraisal well will be completed and placed into production in the next few days with an estimated initial flow rate of around 5,000 barrels per day.

The Italian oil and gas producer said that Petrobel has come up with a rapid development plan immediately for the new discovery with an accelerated approach. The development of the Sidri South discovery will make use of existing infrastructures in the vicinity of the appraisal well and maximize facilities synergies.

Eni said that the strategy will be applied also in future activities in the Sidri region with the next delineation and development wells placed online in a short time.

Estimated to hold around 200 million barrels of oil in place, the Sidri South discovery will be reassessed following the new results, said Eni.

The Italian oil and gas company has been operating in Egypt since 1954. Its existing equity production is nearly 350,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Eni expects its production in Egypt to grow further within the year owing to the Zohr gas field and the ramp-up of the Baltim SW field.

Recently, Eni started production of gas and condensate from the Obiafu 41 discovery in the Niger Delta in Nigeria.

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