Dragon Oil wants in on Egypt’s Nargis gas block: Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC) subsidiary Dragon Oil wants to purchase a stake of at least 20% in the Nargis offshore concession in the Eastern Mediterranean from Chevron, writes Asharq Business, citing an anonymous government official. No information was given about the estimated value of the transaction or the timeline for its completion. This would be the Emirati company’s first acquisition of an Egyptian gas asset.

The current owners: Chevron and Italy’s Eni each own a 45% stake in the concession, while state-owned Tharwa Petroleum holds the remaining 10%.

Initial signs at Nargis are promising : Chevron and Eni last year announced a “significant” gas discovery at the block, without disclosing how much gas is estimated to be in place. An unconfirmed media report put the estimated volume at 3.5 tn cubic feet.

Dragon Oil has more upstream expansion plans: The Emirati firm is expected to up it s local oil output by 27% to 70k barrels a day in October when it begins production at its North Safa oil field in the Gulf of Suez, the news outlet quoted a government official as saying earlier this month. Discovered last year, the field has confirmed reserves of around 170 mn barrels, making it one of the largest discoveries in the last two decades. Dragon Oil bought the field along with the rest of BP’s oil assets in the Gulf of Suez more than three years ago.

Meanwhile, Chevron is expanding its gas exploration elsewhere: The company, together with Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP, will spend a combined USD 1.8 bn to drill 35 gas exploration wells in the Mediterranean and Nile Delta over the next two years, Oil Minister Tarek El Molla said in July.

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