Page 8 - AfrOil Week 46 2019
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Once the gas passes these tests, it can be loaded into a 110-km pipeline that will link Faregh to Intisar, a field also known as 103A that is under the control of Zueitina Oil Co. (ZOC), and then transferred to a pipeline for transport to the coast.
NOC said earlier this year that it expected Faregh’s production capacity to reach 150 mcm per day in November. Last week, it added that the field was likely to see output rise even higher in the near term. WOC intends to tie its eighth well, known as BB-11, into the existing pro- duction complex after it can replace the valve system at the wellhead and begin purifying the
gases extracted there, the statement said. This will push yields up by about 30 mcm per day for gas and 5,000 bpd for condensate, it noted.
Mustafa Sanalla, the chairman of NOC, said that the second phase of the Faregh project would help meet the needs of Libyan businesses and other major domestic consumers.
“In addition to increasing gas production capacity in general, the importance of this project lies in supplying power plants to help resolve the electricity shortage, as well as sup- plying methanol and fertiliser plants in Marsa el-Brega,” Sanalla was quoted as saying in the statement.
Tunisia sees Nawara gas field coming online by year-end
ETAP and OMV are on track to bring the Nawara natural gas field on stream by the end of the year (Photo: OMV)
TUNISIA
SLIM Feriani, Tunisia’s Minister of Industry and Small and Medium Enterprises, said last week that his country was on track to begin produc- tion at a new natural gas field in the near future.
Heriani explained that a 50:50 joint venture set up by Austria’s OMV and Entreprise Tunisi- enne d’Activites Petrolieres (ETAP), Tunisia’s national oil company (NOC), was preparing to bring the Nawara field on stream before the end of this year. Nawara will yield enough gas to boost the North African country’s output by 50%, starting in 2020, he told Bloomberg in an interview.
According to the minister, Nawara will see production peak at 2.7mn cubic metres per day. (Yields will reach 1.35 mcm per day, rising to about 1.89 mcm per day in less than six months.
This will help the country meet domestic demand and improve energy security without raising imports, he said. It will also allow Tunisia to deliver domestically produced gas to a port facility on the Mediterranean coast for export,
he added. He did not specify the volumes avail- able for this purpose but said gas exports could cut the country’s trade deficit by 7%.
Feriani went on to say that he expected the project to foster growth in the Tunisian econ- omy. The country could see GDP expand by around 1% next year as a result of Nawara’s launch, he predicted.
OMV and ETAP began exploring the gas field, which lies in Tataouine Province, in 2003. They made their first discovery of gas and con- densate there in 2008 and secured a production licence in 2010.
The partners had originally hoped to begin production at Nawara in 2016 but were unable to do so because of technical and social setbacks. They pushed the start date back to June 2019 later but were also unable to meet this deadline.
To date, ETAP and OMV have invested about $1.2bn in Nawara. The Austrian com- pany has assumed responsibility for all the costs of exploration, including drilling
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Week 46 20•November•2019
