Dana Gas, the Middle East's first and largest regional private sector natural gas company, has made two new onshore gas discoveries in the Nile Delta Basin of Egypt. Initial estimates indicate that together the two discoveries, known as Alyam-1 and Balsam-1, should increase the company's commercial reserves by between 17 (proved) and 95 (proved & probable) million barrels of oil equivalent (mboe).
The Balsam-1 and Alyam-1 discoveries in West El Manzala are adjacent to the El Basant Field and its associated pipeline network, operated by Dana Gas. They follow two other discoveries in 2012 by Dana Gas:
- West Sama-1 in the West El Qantara Concession, a dry gas discovery in the Kafr El Sheikh formation for which a development plan has been filed
- West Al Baraka-1 well on the Komombo Concession which found a new structure nearby the Al Baraka field, outside the development lease.
In October 2012, Dana Gas’ joint-venture, the Egyptian Bahrain Gas Derivatives Company (EBGDCo) NGL extraction plant at Ras Shukheir in Egypt, started operations. When fully operational, the plant will extract 120,000 t/year of propane & butane from a gas stream of 150 mcf/d (1.5 bcm/year).
Dana Gas is currently the 6th highest gas producer in Egypt, a country whose gas reserves has doubled in the past 5 years to over 70 tcf (1,980 bcm), and is among the world's top ten exporters of LNG.