BP eyes first gas months earlier with subsea ops already underway, as Valaris rig moves to next well

UK-headquartered energy giant BP has wrapped up drilling activities at two wells, targeting to bring them on stream next month. To this end, subsea commissioning operations are ongoing within the Egyptian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Mediterranean Sea as a Valaris-owned drillship goes to the next well on its drilling agenda in the East Mediterranean (East Med) with the European oil major.

The country’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources has disclosed a new success in the East Med region, thanks to the completion of drilling activities undertaken by BP at the Raven field, which will add two wells to the gas production arsenal, as the UK-based giant launches an exploration endeavor at Elking off the coast of Egypt.

The drilling and completion of the two additional wells at the field, which BP operates at the West Nile Delta (WND) concession, was carried out utilizing Valaris’ DS-12 drillship, which the oil major hired in November 2022 on a four-well contract for work offshore Egypt. The drilling assignment was expected to start late in the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter of 2023 and last around 320 days.

BP selected Subsea Integration Alliance, the partnership between Subsea7 and OneSubsea, for a two-well tie-back project in the large West Nile Delta development off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast in May 2023. The Raven Infills project enables Subsea Integration Alliance 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.

Located 65 to 85 kilometers off the coast of Alexandria, the fields of the WND deepwater offshore concession blocks in the Mediterranean Sea were discovered between 2000 and 2010. The $9 billion WHD project is said to be one of the largest in the Mediterranean, covering five fields with 25 producing wells. The first gas from the project came in 2017 from the Taurus and Libra fields.

When February 2019 rolled in, two additional fields, Giza and Fayoum, started production, and the fifth and largest field, Raven, followed in 2021. While the onshore processing facilities have a total gas processing capacity of 1.4 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day, the gas produced is fed into the Egyptian national grid.

Currently, subsea hookup and commissioning activities are ongoing to tie the two new wells to the existing subsea network in the Mediterranean, paving the way for production to begin, with the first gas expected in February 2025. Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources has underlined that this new timeline is three months ahead of schedule, thanks to an accelerated drilling and installation plan.

Having finished its work at these wells, the Valaris DS-12 drillship is now on its way to the Elking exploration area to start an exploratory drilling campaign, which targets natural gas reservoirs in the Lower Messinian Formation, aiming to reach the reservoir by the end of February 2025.

According to the Egyptian authorities, the Elking exploration area is strategically placed near BP’s WND existing infrastructure, including pipelines and production facilities, fast-tracking potential production in the event of a commercial discovery. This contributes to the ministry’s strategy of maximizing natural gas production and operational efficiency.

Karim Badawi, Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, visited Valaris DS-12 in July 2024 to oversee the drilling activities. The country’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources highlights that the exploratory activity in the Elking area aligns with its efforts over the past six months to boost offshore drilling activities in the Mediterranean, which has witnessed a significant increase in exploration and production operations.

These activities include Chevron’s drilling of the Khanjar-1 well, ExxonMobil’s work on the Nefertari-1 well, BP’s developmental drilling at the Raven field, and Eni’s resumption of drilling operations at the Zohr field this month. Last year, Egypt disclosed its plans to sign 15 new agreements by the end of 2024 and 2025, with a signature bonus of up to $20 million, a minimum investment of $748.5 million, and a commitment to drill at least 46 wells.

BP has taken several steps to bolster its asset portfolio, including the agreement from February 2024 to form a new joint venture (JV) with ADNOC in Egypt to grow a highly competitive gas portfolio. The UK giant is contributing its interests in three development concessions and exploration agreements to the JV, and ADNOC brings a proportionate amount of cash for future growth opportunities.

The BP-XRG JV will assist Egypt in reaching its investment goal within the hydrocarbon exploration and field development arena to drill 586 oil and gas wells by 2030 while also taking advantage of opportunities in scaling up renewable energy deployment to bring further green power to its electricity grid.