Agiba finds Western Desert Cretaceous near-giant

May 24, 2012
Agiba Petroleum Co. has made a Cretaceous oil and gas discovery in Egypt’s Western Desert initially judged to have 150-250 million bbl of oil in place.

Agiba Petroleum Co. has made a Cretaceous oil and gas discovery in Egypt’s Western Desert initially judged to have 150-250 million bbl of oil in place.

The Emry Deep-1X well on the Meleiha concession 290 km southwest of Alexandria production tested at 3,500 b/d of 41° gravity oil and 1 MMscfd of associated gas. Drilled to 3,628 m, it encountered more than 250 ft of net pay in multiple good-quality Lower Alam El Bueib sandstones. Appraisal drilling is planned.

Eni SPA, which owns a 56% working interest in the concession through its International Egyptian Oil Co. affiliate, said full-field development foresees an early production phase from the current well to be followed by the drilling of development wells in 2012 to reach 10,000 b/d within months with production treated at Meleiha field facilities.

Eni said, “This result confirms that the Meleiha concession still holds significant untapped deep exploration potential and that the recently acquired 3D seismic survey has boosted the potential of the deep Lower Cretaceous and Jurassic formations.”

IEOC’s partners in Meleiha are OAO Lukoil 24% and Mitsui 20%. Agiba, a joint operating company owned by Egyptian General Petroleum Corp. 50%, IEOC 40%, and Mitsui Oil Exploration Co. Ltd. 10%, is operator of the Emry Deep project.