Italy's Eni discovers huge gas field off Egyptian coast

[3rdRock]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34102656

Italian energy group Eni says it has found one of the world's largest natural gas fields off Egypt's coast.

The company said the area was 1,450m (4,757 feet) beneath the surface and covered 100 sq km (39 sq miles).

It could hold as much as 30 trillion cubic feet of gas, or 5.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent, Eni said.

The company says that the Zohr field "could become one of the world's largest natural-gas finds" and help meet Egypt's gas needs for decades.

[biffvernon]

To make clear, that's 1,450m water depth, so this is not going to be easy gas.

[fuzzy]

Depressing that Egypt itself could use all that gas in 20 years [with zero pop growth]. What the hell for? It's warm there.

[BritDownUnder]

I have just come back from working in Egypt on a gas powered electricity generating station. This was why I was not posting much in the last few months. Actually the gas was not connected so it was being run on what I presume was diesel oil.

Egypt, as you may have gathered from the news, is not in a very happy region and is a country with what may be best described as an interesting future. I was surprised by the unconcerned and apathetic attitude of the Egyptian people that I was able to speak to. I think they are so focused on getting by from day-to-day that any form of planning for the future seems to be totally absent.

[biffvernon]

I think they are so focused on getting by from day-to-day that any form of planning for the future seems to be totally absent.

I guess that applies to a lot of people round the world, though in Britain's case they start from a very different base.