EGPC, Halliburton team up on studies for 50-well program in Egypt

The Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) signed a cooperation agreement with Halliburton on 12 November to carry out the studies needed to prepare a program of 50 oil wells in the General Petroleum Company’s (GPC) areas. The program would run for 18 months.

The partners will evaluate advanced horizontal drilling and multi-stage hydraulic fracturing to unlock new reserves and boost local production. It falls under a Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources initiative this year to expand the use of modern and unconventional technologies in exploration and production, including in formations that were not economical to develop with conventional methods.

The agreement builds on GPC’s first use of hydraulic fracturing to produce gas from the Abu Rawash F formation at the NES-8 well in the Western Desert, which flowed nearly 3,000 mcf/d from a low-permeability layer that could not produce gas by conventional methods.