Belayim Petroleum Company (Petrobel) held a community consultation meeting in Port Fouad fields, Port Said Governorate to discuss evaluation studies of environmental and social impact of Zohr field development project, which was discovered in Shorouk area off the Mediterranean Sea, under petroleum sector’s commitment to environmental dimension upon establishing new petroleum projects and in light of full cooperation and coordination among companies operating in the petroleum industry, various executive bodies and people residing at petroleum exploration areas in all governorates.
The meeting was attended by Governor of Port Said Adel El-Ghadban, Chairman of Petrobel Engineer Atif Hassan, representatives of Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA), governorate chief executive officials and local community representatives.
During the meeting, the Chairman of Petrobel stated that the meeting demonstrates company’s commitment to the local and environmental laws and regulations, international agreements and treaties, as well as the EEAA›s instructions to ensure the approval of the civil society on implementing these projects. He pointed out that the meeting aims at introducing the civil society to project location and its various stages and reviewing environmental effects and impacts of the project on the civil society, examining the company›s plan that aims at controlling and minimizing these effects and impacts and demonstrating relationship between project stages and environment surrounding the project location.
He explained that Zohr well is the largest gas discovery ever made in Egypt and the Mediterranean region since the beginning of oil and gas exploration and this discovery was the result of fruitful cooperation between petroleum sector and the Italian oil company Eni. The Zohr field reserves amount to roughly 30 trillion cubic feet of gas that will be devoted to meeting the needs of the local market of natural gas and its investments are $ 12-16 billion during the course of the project. It is planned to start early production of the project according to the specified development plan by the end of 2017 with the rate of one billion cubic feet of gas per day and it will reach a peak of nearly 2.7 billion cubic feet per day in 2019.
He added that the project includes digging and completion of 20 wells, installing 20 underwater wellheads, measurements, protection and control, installing gas pipeline network, which will transport gas form wells to gas reservoirs and then to onshore processing plant, and design, supply and manufacturing of offshore gas platform that will be equipped with well control devices. The project also includes installation of 3 electro-hydraulic cables that will connect onshore processing plant to wellheads in order to control wells and production. The project also includes design, supply and manufacturing of onshore processing plant that will be equipped with processing and separation equipment, including service, protection, storage facilities.
