Mubarak gave Wednesday morning the go-ahead for natural gas production from Rashid
Egypt's Oil Minister Sameh Fahmi said that Egypt’s confirmed oil reserves have witnessed a marked steady increase over the past five years or so, going up from three billion barrels in 1997 to 14 billions this year.
Answering a query by the President about consumption and export rates, he said that up to 40 million tones of gas are being locally consumed every year while six million tones are being exported.
Fahmi expounded in details the targets of the project, its expected production capacity and its importance in attracting Arab and foreign investments.
The oil minister said that local petrol consumption rates have increased from 16.5 million tones in 1981 to 41.1 millions in 2001, worth $ 7.5 billion according to present world prices.
he said that Egypt is number 11 on the world list of gas exporting countries. “In 2006 Egypt will be the world's fifth exporter of methane,” he added.
Rasheed field is the first offshore gas field in the deep Mediterranean sea waters, about 300 kilometers north of Cairo.
The investment cost of the project amounted to $216 millions that included prospecting works, onshore and offshore facilities, treatment plants and transportation fines.
The prospective drilling capacity of the Rasheed gas rig is set at 275 million cubic meters per day in addition to 300 million barrels per day of highly productive condensates.
The Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) claims 50 percent of the shares in the project, British gas company 20 percent, shell 20 percent and the Italian Edison company 10 percent.
Egypt’s confirmed natural gas reserve is estimated at 58 trillion cubic meters in addition to 78 trillion cubic meters of likely reserve.
Egypt signed agreements to export 10 million cubic meters of natural gas per day to France, Spain, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Jordan will be the first recipient of Egypt’s natural gas as of the first half of next year via pipeline while France and Spain will be supplied with liquefied gas from Egypt as of 2004.