BP boosts gas production from Mediterranean Sea as it fires up next chapter of giant project

UK-headquartered energy giant BP has brought online the second development phase of a field at the West Nile Delta (WND) concession in the Mediterranean within the Egyptian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

While disclosing the start of production from the Raven field’s second development phase off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, BP explained that the project involved the subsea tie-back of additional Raven infill wells to its existing onshore infrastructure as part of the West Nile Delta project. The UK player, as the operator, holds an 82.75% stake in the WND project, while Harbour Energy owns the remaining 17.25%.

To bring the second stage to life, BP hired Subsea Integration Alliance, the partnership between Subsea7 and OneSubsea, for a two-well tie-back project in May 2023 to handle the engineering, procurement, transport, and installation of approximately six kilometers of flexible pipes, umbilical, and associated subsea structures in water depths of around 800 meters.

Nader Zaki, BP’s Regional President for the Middle East and North Africa, commented: “Since January 2024, we have not stopped drilling for one day. The focus of the Raven Infills project has been to fight natural decline and increase production while maximizing our existing infrastructure to meet Egypt’s domestic market demand at pace. This further demonstrates BP’s commitment to investing in Egypt, enabled by the unparalleled support and partnership with the Ministry of Petroleum, EGPC, and EGAS.”

The operator’s new wells, executed ahead of schedule with the Valaris-owned DS-12 drillship, are expected to produce approximately 220 billion cubic feet of gas and 7 million barrels of condensate. The $9 billion WHD deepwater offshore blocks are located 65 to 85 kilometers off the coast of Alexandria, where discoveries were made between 2000 and 2010.

This project is said to be one of the largest in the Mediterranean, covering a series of gas condensate fields in the North Alexandria and West Mediterranean deepwater concessions. The first gas from the project came in 2017 from the Taurus and Libra fields, preceded by two additional fields, Giza and Fayoum, which started production in February 2019, and the fifth and largest field, Raven, followed suit in 2021.

The Raven field’s initial phase entailed the development of eight subsea wells, located up to 65 kilometers offshore, at water depths ranging from 550 to 700 meters. While the onshore processing facilities have a total gas processing capacity of 1.4 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day, the produced gas is fed into the Egyptian national grid.

Wail Shaheen, VP of BP Egypt, highlighted: “The safe start-up of this project follows our recent announcement of the successful completion of the El King exploration well. This series of achievements embodies our ongoing commitment to helping meet the increasing local energy demand by optimizing production from available resources while adding new ones.”

The Raven infill project is in line with BP’s drive to deliver a simpler, more focused, higher-value company by maximizing production from existing assets and optimizing resource efficiency. The start-up of Raven’s second phase comes shortly after the UK giant’s oil and gas discovery in King Mariout.

The company has taken several steps to bolster its asset portfolio in Egypt, including the agreement to form a new joint venture (JV) with ADNOC, known as the BP-XRG JV.

This will also help Egypt in reaching its investment goal within the hydrocarbon exploration and field development segments to drill 586 oil and gas wells by 2030.