Great activity by Eni's CEO Claudio Descalzi before the summer break. After meeting in Tripoli with the Libyan head of government al Sarraj on Monday, Eni's number one flew to Cairo to see Egyptian premier Sherif Ismail.
Also in Egypt, as in Libya, Descalzi spoke mainly of gas. In the specific case, the theme of the meeting was “mainly the future of the mega Zohr field and the positive impact that this will have on the national energy economy. The CEO Claudio Descalzi - specifies the Eni press release - illustrated to the Prime Minister the stages that are marking the rapid development of the project. Thanks to the important operational synergies that Eni has been able to exploit with its facilities in the area, Zohr has achieved, in just under 2 years from its discovery, a level of completion of the works equal to 80%, a record result in the industry oil”.
With a potential of 850 billion cubic meters of gas in place, Zohr will not only be able to satisfy almost the total domestic gas demand for the coming decades but will also be able to create the conditions to allow all 'Egypt to return to being a net exporter of energy.
Eni recalls that it has been present in Egypt since 1954, where it operates through its subsidiary IEOC. The company is the country's leading producer with a quota production of approximately 230.000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
However, the speed with which Eni is actually preparing to produce at Zohr - urged by the Egyptian government which is thirsty for energy to support the country's development - could find an obstacle in the US sanctions on Russia. The Italian group has in fact sold a 30% stake in the Shorouk concession to Rosneft and another 10% to BP. Which means that it will operate the field but with a partnership (also on costs) of the Russians and the British. Europe is watching carefully the American moves and has already pronounced itself firmly: the EU will not accept that sanctions decided unilaterally by the United States could have an impact on European companies engaged in energy projects with Russian companies. A list of projects likely to suffer from sanctions that Donald Trump has said he wants to countersign (but hasn't yet) also includes Zohr. And it is presumable that Claudio Descalzi and Sherif Ismail also spoke about this in Cairo, although there is no trace of it in the official statement.
