BP has started gas production from the first two fields, Taurus and Libra, of the West Nile Delta development in Egypt. The project was delivered eight months ahead of start-up schedule and under budget. First gas was exported to Egypt’s national grid on 24 March 2017 and the commissioning of all nine wells of the development’s first two fields and ramp up to stable operations has now been completed.

The West Nile Delta development, which includes five gas fields across the North Alexandria and West Mediterranean Deepwater offshore concession blocks, is being developed as two separate projects to enable BP and its partners to accelerate gas production commitments to Egypt. When fully onstream in 2019, combined production from both projects is expected to reach up to almost 1.5 billion cubic feet a day (bcf/d), equivalent to about 30 per cent of Egypt’s current gas production. All the gas produced will be fed into the national gas grid.

Following final approval in 2015, development of the first project, involving the Taurus and Libra fields, was fast-tracked to enable delivery of an annual average of more than 600 million standard cubic feet of gas a day (mmscf/d) to the Egyptian national gas grid. The fields are currently producing more than 700mmscf/d sales gas and 1000 barrels per day (bbls/d) condensate which is 20% higher than the planned sales gas plateau.

The Taurus and Libra project is a subsea greenfield development including nine wells (six in Taurus and three in Libra) and a 42 kilometre tie back to the existing onshore processing facility where gas enters the Egyptian national gas grid via a nearby export pipeline.

This is the second of seven major upstream projects that BP expects to come into production during 2017. Together with the projects that began production in 2016, these new start-ups are expected to provide BP with 500,000 barrels equivalent a day (boe/d) of new production capacity by the end of this year. With further new projects starting up beyond this, by the end of the decade BP’s new projects are expected to have added 800,000 boe/d of new production.

Bob Dudley, BP group chief executive, said: 
“West Nile Delta is a strategic national project that will add significant gas production to the Egyptian market and is another example of BP’s commitment to Egypt. Our continuing investments in the country, including West Nile Delta, Atoll and our recent investment in Zohr, are laying the foundations for growth for BP in Egypt well into the future.

“It is also another important step in BP’s growing production from high-quality new projects - in total, the West Nile Delta project will account for around a quarter of the new production we expect by 2020. Coupled with the series of important agreements that BP has recently made around the world, the continuing start-ups of these projects demonstrate momentum and a return to growth across BP.”

Commenting on the project, Hesham Mekawi, BP North Africa regional president said: 
“We are proud to announce the early start-up of West Nile Delta as it demonstrates BP’s ongoing commitment to help meet Egypt’s growth in local energy demand with the Ministry of Petroleum and our partners. West Nile Delta is a key part of BP’s growth strategy in Egypt, which is to build on our strong resource position and existing infrastructure to more than triple our current production to Egypt by 2020. Our plan is to progress our other discovered resources and to continue our exploration program and follow-on, allowing us to maintain our production to 2030 and beyond.”

Mekawi added, “Thanks to a clear focus on efficiency and capturing market deflation, this complex project has been delivered with lower capital levels compared to project sanction. We are also proudly investing in sustainable local community development projects, maximizing local content and creating thousands of jobs for Egyptians.”

The second West Nile Delta project, involving development of the Giza, Fayoum and Raven fields, is currently ahead of schedule and below budget. The project will involve twelve wells and two deep-water long distance subsea tie-backs to the shore. Fluids will be processed through an onshore plant modified for Giza and Fayoum and integrated with a new adjacent onshore plant for Raven. Production from these fields is expected to start in 2019.