Eni says that it plans to imminently begin drilling at Zohr after last week reaching an agreement with Cairo covering field development and gas sales. This will see Eni invest $12bn in drilling 20 wells planned over a 26-month period.
With first output ambitiously slated for late 2017, it is unlikely all 20 wells will be solely appraisal wells and more likely successful wells will then become producers. No details were readily available for which parts of the field will be targeted, neither did the firm indicate how many wells will be needed for it to make a final investment decision on the field. Eni will need to make rapid progress on development infrastructure simultaneously with the drilling campaign to stand any chance of getting output onstream by end-2017. (CONTINUED - 853 WORDS)
