BG Group on 19 April announced that deliveries of first gas from the offshore Egyptian gasfields of Simian Sienna and Rosetta Phase II had begun. It said BG and its partners Petronas and the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) had begun on 15 April to deliver first gas from the Simian Sienna fields to ELNG Train 1 at Idku. On the same day, BG and its partners Edison International and EGAS delivered first gas from Rosetta Phase II to the Egyptian domestic market, the statement said.

BG is operator of both sites. The Simian Sienna gasfields are located in the West Delta Deep Marine (WDDM) concession some 120km offshore Alexandria. Facilities there consist of eight sub-sea wells tied into the existing WDDM gas gathering network. There is also a shallow water control platform. Onshore processing facilities form part of the Idku gas hub where the ELNG facilities are also located. The Rosetta gasfield, which is located 60km offshore, came on-stream in January 2001 and supplies Egypt’s domestic market. The Rosetta Phase II development consists of an unmanned minimum facilities wellhead platform tied back to the Rosetta platform. An amendment to the Rosetta gas sales agreement calls for the daily contracted quantity of gas production from Rosetta to rise to 345mn cfd from the current 275mn cfd 120 days after the date of delivery of first gas.

BG and its partners are investing $1.3bn in the upstream development of the WDDM concession, which includes the Scarab, Saffron, Simian Sienna and Sapphire gasfields, supplying the $1.9bn ELNG project. Train 1 is due to produce its first LNG cargo before the end of June. Its gas supply will come from the Simian Sienna gasfield. Train 2, which will be supplied by the Sapphire gasfield, will come into production before end-2005. Both trains will produce 3.6mn tons/year. The entire output of Train 1 has been sold to Gaz de France under a 20-year sales and purchase agreement, while Train 2 production has been sold to BG Gas Marketing and will go initially to the US and then Italy. The Sapphire gasfield is scheduled to come on-stream in the third quarter of 2005.

The shareholding for ELNG Train 1 is: BG Group (35.5%), Petronas (35.5%), the Egyptian General Petroleum Company (EGPC – 12%), the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS – 12%), and Gaz de France (5%). The shareholding for ELNG Train 2 is: BG Group (38%), Petronas (38%), EGPC (12%) and EGAS (12%).