Egypt Drills New Oil and Gas Wells in Hopes of Moving Away from Energy Imports
Egyptian Oil and Mineral Resources Minister Karim Badawi spoke about a new stage of hydrocarbon exploration in the country, which includes drilling 586 exploratory wells by 2030.
It is planned to drill 110 wells by 2026 for $1.2 billion. By 2030, the number of wells should increase to 586, with $7.2 billion planned to be spent on this.
The country is believed to have very impressive gas reserves of 2.2 trillion cubic meters, but now Egypt has big problems with the production of blue fuel. In 2018, after reaching full production capacity of the largest offshore field Zohr, Egypt not only switched to self-sufficiency in blue fuel, but could also afford to export it.
However, in recent years, production at Zohr has begun to fall sharply, as a result of which Egypt was forced to abandon exports, and the country also had to look for imported gas volumes. The situation was further aggravated by the cessation of methane supplies from Israel.
Earlier, Egypt, along with its own volumes of blue fuel, also accepted Israeli gas for liquefaction.
