Biggest gas find in Western Desert
Egypt, Business, 11/8/2003

The largest natural gas find was discovered in the Western Desert, 100 kilometers southwest of Matrouh, said Minister of Petroleum Sameh Fahmi.

Chairman of the state-owned Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS), engineer Mohammad Taweela, said on Thursday that the discovery took place in the concessions area of Khalda Petroleum Company after completing the digging in the Qasr 2 exploratory well where a 700-cubic-foot layer of gas and condensates were discovered.

With the completion of the digging of the Qasr 1 and Qasr 2 wells, a confirmed reserve of between 2 to 3 trillion cubic feet of gas was found together with 70 million barrels of high-quality condensates.

The Director of the American Apache Corporation, which is working in the concessions area, said that the discovery is the highest in the history of his 49-year-old company.

He said that the development plan for the field will be continued by digging four more wildcats to determine the scope of the gas and oil in the area.

On Wednesday, Germany's RWE Dea AG and partner BP reported another significant gas find in the Mediterranean of the Egyptian coast.

Egypt, one of the world's top 20 gas producers, has seen its known natural gas reserves increase steadily over the past 10 years, reaching 1.656 trillion cubic meters (58.5 trillion cubic feet) in October last year.

The appraised well showed that there was a 700-foot-thick layer of Jurassic-era sand as the exploratory well revealed an extension of the new find with reserves ranging between 2-3 trillion cubic feet.

Apache Executive Director, Steven Farris, said that the results are dazzling and the corporation is committed to carry on the find development plan, which involves the digging of four appraisal wells to determine the field's extensions.

Previous Stories:
  Russian bank invests in oil, natural gas fields   (10/15/2003)
  Egypt has promising oil and gas finds, Apache Oil Company   (8/7/2003)
  Premier discuses with Shell president exploring for natural gas   (6/24/2003)

Please add a link on your webiste pointing to ArabicNews.com and bookmark ArabicNews.com & subscribe to our daily email news bulletin.

Search