BP has agreed to sell mature oil assets in Egypt to Dragon Oil, a fully-owned subsidiary of the Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC) (United Arab Emirates). The transaction, whose amount is not disclosed, includes BP's interests in Gulf of Suez oil concessions (including BP's stake in the Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company (GUPCO)). The sale is expected to be completed in the second half of 2019 and is in line with BP's plans to sell more than US$10bn of assets globally over the next two years.
BP will focus on the development of new fields in Egypt: the group has already invested nearly US$12bn in Egypt in the past four years and plans to invest another US$3bn by 2021. BP aims to triple its 2016 net production from Egypt by 2020. In February 2019, it started gas production from the second stage of its West Nile Delta operations offshore Egypt, which involved the development of the Giza, Fayoum and Raven fields. It is estimated to hold 5 tcf (more than 140 bcm) of gas resources and 55 mbl of condensate, requiring a total investment of about US$12bn. Gas production is expected to ramp up to 1.4 bcf/d (40 mcm/d or 14.5 bcm/year) when the final stage - developing the Raven field - starts production in 2019 and when the project is fully onstream later in 2019.