Abstract

The story of Zohr started during mid-2012 when Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) launched a competitive bid round covering 15 offshore/onshore blocks in the Nile Delta. At that time, after more than 40 years of exploration, the Nile Delta plays (mostly clastic and gas prone), from the HP/HT Oligocene pre-salt to the DHI-supported Plio-Pleistocene post-salt, had all been assessed. A new innovative play was needed to restart exploration and to renew IEOC (Eni’s affiliate company in Egypt) exploration portfolio. The opportunity was offered by several blocks on auction located along the Egypt–Cyprus border in deep water/ultra-deep water, previously explored during a 12-year period (1999–2011) without commercial success. Although looking for the extension into Egypt of the multi-Tcf, biogenic gas, Levantine-style play that had been proven in 2009–2011 in both Israel and Cyprus waters by the Noble–Delek JV (Leviathan, Tamar and Aphrodite discoveries), IEOC explorers identified something profoundly different and yet similar in the Block 9 (later to become the Shorouk block). Instead of the Oligocene to Early Miocene clastic deep-water sandstones sealed by the interbedded shales in anticlinal traps, a structural high linked to the Eratosthenes Seamount crustal block showed geometries typical of a shallow-water isolated carbonate buildup, capped by Messinian salt onto which the Miocene clastics were laterally abutting. Two targets were initially inferred for the Zohr prospect, respectively Miocene and Early Cretaceous age in analogy with the sedimentary section detected by several ODP cores on the northern flank of the Eratosthenes Seamount.

The Zohr-1 discovery well, drilled in 2015 in 1450 m of water, was the first well targeting a carbonate play in the East Mediterranean. It found Miocene and predominantly Early Cretaceous shallow-water carbonates facies with a 624 m continuous biogenic gas column. The following four appraisal wells confirmed the initially estimated gas-in-place volumes.

Thanks to Eni Upstream Business model, driven by time to market speed and cost-effectiveness while converting discoveries into production and based on the full integration of exploration and development, only two years after the discovery the gas of Zohr came onstream (December 2017), a record for a deep-water development project. The start-up was followed by a quick and smooth ramp up, reaching even the production plateau far ahead of the plan of development commitments. In parallel, the application of Eni dual exploration model contributed to boost the cash generation from the asset. Zohr reshaped the energy scenario of the whole Eastern Mediterranean and provided the industry with a new discovered play that was quickly pursued around the Eratosthenes Seamount in Cyprus.