LNG

NewMed Energy, the Israeli company with stakes in the East Mediterranean gas fields of Tamar and Leviathan offshore Israel and with LNG export ambitions, has published its annual results showing pipeline gas continued to flow to the Israeli domestic market and to Egypt and Jordan even after the outbreak of war in Gaza in October 2023.

Italian major Eni has successfully completed the Cronos-2 natural gas well, drilled to appraise the Cronos discovery in Block 6 offshore Cyprus as the East Mediterranean becomes a focus for the development of a gas and LNG hub to supply Europe.

The World Bank said progress has been made in the past year in reducing gas flaring in the oil and gas business and points to benefits from associated gas being used for LNG production with a worldwide reduction in flaring of 5 billion cubic metres to 139 Bcm, the lowest level since 2010.

NewMed Energy, the Israeli company considering a floating liquefied natural gas plant to further develop the Leviathan gas field in the East Mediterranean, has expanded its activities by signing agreements for an exploration licence targeting gas offshore Morocco in the Atlantic Ocean.

NewMed signed an accord with Adarco Energy Ltd and Morocco’s National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines for natural gas and/or oil exploration and production activity in the Boujdour Atlantique exploration licence.

According to the agreements, NewMed will hold 37.5 percent of the interests in the exploration licence. Adarco will own 37.5 percent and the remaining 25 percent has been granted to Morocco’s ONHYM, the above body’s name in French, Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (ONHYM).

NewMed’s East Med options include an FLNG facility or a pipeline connections to Egyptian liquefaction plants located east of Alexandria.

Among its assets, NewMed holds the rights to 45 percent of the Leviathan offshore gas field with the other major shareholder in the field being US major Chevron Corp. A smaller stake is held by Israel's Avner.

NewMed, which announced its name change from Delek Drilling in February 2022, also has its stake in the Aphrodite gas field in Cyprus's offshore economic zone waters, making it one of the biggest players in the East Med.

Moroccan potential

NewMed said that the North African kingdom had enormous geological and commercial potential.

The Boujdour Atlantique licence is in the south of Morocco’s EEZ and will be issued for a total of eight years.

According to the work plan, 30 months from the date of the granting of the licence, a geological and geophysical analysis will be performed in the area of interest and an initial exploration drilling is planned after around 2.5 years.

A statement said that the agreements were contingent on receipt of approval from Morocco’s Ministry of Energy Transition and sustainable development and from the Ministry of Finance.

“From one day to the next we are expanding our international operations and becoming a global body in every respect,” said Yossi Abu, Chief Executive of NewMed.

“We have long identified enormous potential in Morocco and the announcement is part of an extensive strategic move that will render NewMed Energy the leading energy body in the East Mediterranean region and North Africa,” stated Abu.

Harry Murphy, Director of Adarco, said his company’s principals have been active in the energy market for many years.

“We are delighted to be entering the Moroccan natural gas exploration sector in partnership with NewMed Energy, a leading energy company which has invested massively in the petroleum industry and has been involved in major discoveries over the past 30 years,” Murphy declared. 

NewMed Energy, the Israel company formally known as Delek Drilling, said it was considering a floating liquefied national gas plant to further develop the Leviathan gas field offshore Israel in the East Mediterranean amid other gas developments in the region.

Eni, the Italian energy company with exploration success in the African continent supplying feed gas for LNG projects from Egypt to Mozambique, has been awarded five new licences by the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum.

Sept 24 (LNGJ) - Shell, which has operated in Egypt for 110 years, has completed the sale of its upstream assets in the Egyptian Western Desert to a consortium as the Anglo-Dutch company now plans to concentrate on other Egyptian hydrocarbon basins and on its LNG business. The Shell sale was to Egypt-based Cheiron Petroleum Corp. and UK-listed Cairn Energy Plc for $646 million and additional payments of up to $280M between 2021 and 2024, contingent on the oil price and the results of further exploration.

   “With this transaction Shell is refocusing its business in Egypt on our existing infrastructure position in the West Delta Deep Marine, the Harmattan Deep Project and exploration acreage in the new seven blocks in the Nile Delta, West Mediterranean and the Red Sea, in our Egyptian LNG (ELNG) joint venture and in Downstream through Shell Lubricants Egypt,” said Shell.

Italian energy company Eni has outlined a project to expand natural gas treatment facilities in Egypt connected to the Western Desert Gas Complex in the port of Alexandria to further tap the region's gas reserves.

The expansion of natural gas facilities coincided with an agreement with the Government of Egypt, the Egyptian General Petroleum Corp.(EGPC) and Russian oil company Lukoil for the merger of the concessions of Meleiha and Meleiha Deep, in Egypt's Western Desert, and their extension to 2036.

The extension of the Meleiha concession time also has the possibility of reaching out to a further timeline of 2041.

“The agreement, which marks another important result for Eni in the prolific basin of the Egyptian Western Desert, will unlock, through enhanced contractual terms, the area’s considerable resources,” explained Eni.

“The company will leverage the skills of local contractors already involved in the implementation of important projects in Egypt, including the fast-track development of the giant Zohr gas field,” said Eni.

Before the bringing on stream of the Zohr field in the East Mediterranean in 2017, Egypt had been forced to import LNG from 2015 in two floating storage and regasification units deployed at Ain Sokhna in the Gulf of Suez.

The Egyptians halted LNG imports two years ago and have now started regular exports of LNG from their two liquefaction facilities at Idku and Damietta, east of the port of Alexandria.

The Idku LNG export plant has been on stream again since 2017 under the operatorship of Royal Dutch Shell, which acquired original operator BG Group.

The Damietta facility only re-started operations and exports in February 2021.

With Damietta back on stream, Egypt added 4.5 million tonnes per annum of LNG output to its export volumes now totalling 12.5 MTPA.

The Milan-based major has completed a high-resolution 3D seismic acquisition of the Meleiha blocks ahead of intensive exploration and a development drilling campaign in the Meleiha and Meleiha Deep concessions.

The concessions are operated by Agiba, the 50-50 joint venture between Eni and EGPC through an Eni subsidiary that holds a 76 percent interest in the concessions, while Lukoil holds a 24 percent interest. 

Italian energy company Eni and UK major BP announced a new natural gas discovery in the “Great Nooros Area” of the Abu Madi West Development lease in the Nile Delta offshore Egypt and coupled with other finds in the block there is potential for LNG production.

Eni said that there could be more than 4 trillion cubic feet of gas in place in the Great Nooros Area where there have been other discoveries since 2015.

The latest exploration and production success for Eni is making the East Mediterranean Basin a potential world-class gas province with other nations such as Israel and Cyprus also making discoveries in recent years.

The Nile Delta Block operator Eni said the new discovery, achieved through the Nidoco NW-1 exploratory well, is located in 16 metres of water depth and is four kilometres north from the Nooros field discovered in July 2015.

The Nidoco NW-1 exploratory well discovered gas-bearing sands for a total thickness of 100 metres.

“In the Abu Madi formations a new level, which was not yet encountered in the Nooros field, has been crossed proving the high potential of the Great Nooros Area and the further extension of the gas potential to the North of the field,” explained the Italian company.

“The preliminary evaluation of the well results, considering the extension of the reservoir towards north and the dynamic behaviour of the field, together with the recent discoveries performed in the area, indicates that the Great Nooros Area gas in place can be estimated in excess of 4 Tcf,” stated Eni.

Eni said that together with its partner BP and in coordination with the Egyptian petroleum sector, it would begin screening the development options of this new discovery and available synergies with the area's existing infrastructure.

Eni holds a 75 percent stake in the license of Abu Madi West lease, while BP owns the remaining 25 percent stake.

The Italian company’s title of operator is in conjunction with Petrobel, an equal joint venture between Eni and the state company Egyptian General Petroleum Corp. (EGPC).

Eni signed a series of agreements in March 2020 with the government of Egypt and state-owned companies to re-open the nation’s Damietta LNG export plant east of Alexandria.

The plant, a joint venture called Segas, is 40 percent-owned by Eni through Union Fenosa Gas (50 percent Eni and 50 percent Naturgy).

The facility has a nameplate capacity of 5.5 million tonnes per annum of LNG, but has been idle since November 2012 when Egypt suffered natural gas shortages.

In addition to Damietta LNG, Egypt has a second export plant, the Idku facility operated by Royal Dutch Shell and which has been back in commercial operation since 2017.

Eni’s discovery of the huge Zohr gas field in the East Med in 2015 helped transform the Arab nation’s LNG and domestic gas fortunes.  

Chevron Corp., the US major and operator of two world-class LNG export plants in Western Australia, has agreed to acquire Houston-based Noble Energy and its assets in US shale basins and the East Mediterranean, including the Leviathan and Tamar gas fields offshore Israel.