Liquid Natural Gas Supply from The East Nile Delta, Arab Republic of Egypt: A Series of Innovations Secure Export Gas For 17 Years

Peter J. Evans, Eric J. Phinney, and Simon A. Anderson
BP Egypt, Cairo, Egypt

The objective of this paper is to highlight the evolution of an integrated plan of development for the Taurt Field discovery located in the Ras El Barr concession in the East Nile Delta, Arab Republic of Egypt. Taurt Field was discovered in early 2004 and an expedited appraisal program allowed commitment to an export gas sales agreement later the same year. The approximate 1 TCF resource will supply a portion of a 17 year supply commitment to the Damietta LNG Train 1. Development wells will be executed in late 2007 and first gas is expected in early 2008.
The Taurt Field consists of stacked, Pleistocene paralic reservoirs trapped by a roll-over structure against a main listric fault. Five main reservoir intervals are targeted for development via seven subsea wells. The wells will be drilled in three phases from two drill centers. Depletion plan optimization allows access to 60% of reserves from Phase 1 drilling while deferring capex for Phase 2 subsea architecture and eliminating the risk of drilling depleted reservoirs later in field life. Controls are via 72 km umbilical from the beach, and a 20” export pipeline will bring resources to the existing West Harbor gas plant. Two stages of compression are included in the base plan with an aspiration for subsea compression to reach technical limit recovery factors.
This project represents the first subsea development for BP in Egypt and will be BP's longest gas tie-back to shore. The project drives standardization across the Mediterranean which improves value and builds local expertise and knowledge.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90072 © 2007 AAPG and AAPG European Region Conference, Athens, Greece