New Dana discoveries to double reserves

Sharjah: Dana Gas has announced that its drilling campaign in Egypt has led to yet another significant gas and condensate discovery at its Salma-1 well in its Nile Delta Concession.

The news follows closely on last month's announcement by the company of a significant discovery of gas and condensate reserves, estimated in excess of 130 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas, at its El Basant-2 well, also in the Nile Delta Concession.

The Salma-1 well is the company's second well drilled in the West Qantara Concession, approximately 15 kilometres from Dana Gas's South Manzala gas processing facilities. It was spudded on December 1, 2008, reaching a total depth of 2,231 metres.

The first production test on the well was initiated before the end of December 2008. The well penetrated 25 metres of net pay in the good quality sandstone reservoir of the Abu Madi formation, and additional reserves are currently estimated to exceed 150 billion cubic feet of gas.

An additional four metres of sandstone gas pay was encountered in the shallower Kafr Al Shaikh formation.

"We are very pleased with the results of Dana Gas' aggressive drilling programme last year, and the excellent results yielded by the Salma-1 well definitely call for more exploratory drilling in the area, where there are several similar prospects which we will be planning soon," said Ahmad Al Arbeed, Dana Gas Upstream executive director.

"These discoveries have already achieved the ambitious targets we set for 2008 and will potentially double the company's reserves in Egypt."