IPR Strikes Major Gas Discovery in Egyptian Desert

Texas independent oil & gas explorer IPR announced the discovery of a significant gas condensate field in its Alamein Concession located in the Western Desert of Egypt.

IPR, operator of the Concession, pursued a new play concept for several years targeting the untapped Alam El-Bueib (AEB) formation in the Yidma-11X well.  The discovery well, located 80 miles (130 km) southwest of the city of Alexandria, encountered both gas and condensate at a depth of 12,000 ft.  The well tested 14.3 million cubic ft/day of gas and 1,000 bbls/day of condensate of 53 deg API gravity with no water produced.  This primary target of the AEB was discovered by IPR after subsurface imaging of high quality 3D seismic revealed bright spots in this region of the Alamein Ridge.

While no gas has been found in this formation in this region of the Western Desert, it appears that commercial quantities of very rich gas exist.  IPR and its technical experts are remapping what could prove to be a much larger structure of gas and condensate.

Dr. Mahmoud K. Dabbous, chairman of the IPR Group, stated “finding high quality onshore gas in the Western Desert was very rewarding, especially knowing the country of Egypt’s critical need for energy – particularly for natural gas for power generation and gas condensates for domestic consumption – is a top priority at the present time.  Our technical team of E&P experts will continue to aggressively develop this discovery for the benefit of the country with the IPR Group’s longstanding history as a technology leader and an active investor in the Energy Sector, in addition to monetizing the upside for the shareholders.”

IPR plans to invest in 57 wells in Egypt in 2014 as a part of its aggressive growth plan in the MENA region.

4 Comments on "IPR Strikes Major Gas Discovery in Egyptian Desert"

Lucky Luck on Tue, 31st Dec 2013 1:41 pm 



It is really a “significant” discovery.
Uncle Sam’s deputy is in the area!
Let’s say GREAT!

robertinget on Tue, 31st Dec 2013 2:42 pm 



Too bad it will take so long to develop
and deliver that gas to energy starved Egyptians. Long before pipelines are laid, wells drilled, Egypt’s patron, Saudi Arabia could collapse from ‘arms overburden’. Few in North America can grasp the seriousness of Egypt’s current plight. Without reliable electricity, cheap liquid fuels Egypt becomes another ‘failed state’.

Instead of annually two billion in US military aid, we should have been subsidizing American alternative energy companies putting solar panels on that sand instead of ‘defence’ contractors. Incidentally, most of the hundreds of tanks and military equipment
the US provided is really effective for intimidating demonstrators, Not Israel, which is why Tel-Aviv goes along.

DC on Tue, 31st Dec 2013 9:44 pm 



RigPorn again. All that rag cares about is that someone in the gas\oil industry is going to make a few(subsidized) dollars extracting that gas. The larger question-the one that matters, is will it help address the root cause of Egypts troubles?

Namely: Overpopulation
50% of food needs imported
NEt importer of energy. Now recieving fossil-fuel welfare from its neighbors that still have surpluses to spare.

Well, of course this ‘major find’ wont address any of those problems. Perhaps it will slow the last one incrementally at best. But, all that rigporn cares about is an O+G corporation will make some money. That is as far the horizons extends for these guys….

rockman on Tue, 31st Dec 2013 10:35 pm 



A great well by any measure for sure. But a great flow rate doesn’t constitute a “significant”. Especially when terms such a significant mean nothing specific.

“Bright spot”: if conditions are right and the seismic is shot and processes properly one can actually “see” the reservoir on the data. Seismic data might show a structure that could have trapped oil/NG but the vast majority of such potent traps contain no hydrocarbons. But a bright spot (seismic amplitude anomaly) can increase your probability of success from 10 – 15% to 80%+. Not all bright spots are NG reservoirs. Depending on the trend there may be many false positives. My personal best was hitting 23 out of 25. Not big wells but kept me fed during the lean times of the late 80’s.

And this is wear I smell a hint of hype. They drilled the bright spot and proved the NG was there. But now the same seismic data should do an excellent job of defining the areal distribution of the reservoir. Depending on how much the reservoir varies in thickness a fairly reasonable estimate of the hydrocarbons can be made. Maybe IPR is waiting to drill confirmation wells. But given what I imagine is good seismic control I’m a bit surprised they don’t at least offer an estimate of the in place reserves. “Significant” might be X bcf and Y million bo or 30X bcf and 30 Y million bo. Significant is in the eyes of he beholder.

For the first 3 years of my company’s existence we spent $400 million chasing deep NG/condensate reservoirs using seismic bright spots. And made some wells with comparable flow rates. Unfortunate most discoveries were small and typically one well fields…maybe 120 acres. Some big flow rates did not equate to big reserves. They were pretty much all that was left onshore. The big 2,000 acre conventional bright spot fields were discovered 25+ years ago. And then when NG prices crashed even a high success rate didn’t justify continuing the program. But IPR may be working in area that hasn’t been shot with quality seismic data we’ve had in the US the last 30 years. They might be the proverbial kid in the candy shop.