EGYPT’S Nile Delta Basin holds some 223trillion cu ft (mean estimate) of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas, according to the US Geological Survey.
This is the first USGS assessment of this basin to identify potentially extractable resources.
The agency also recently completed an assessment of the adjacent Levant Basin Province, with a mean estimated natural gas resource of some 122TCF. The Nile Delta Basin Province, which covers an estimated area of 250,000sq km, also holds an estimated 1.7billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and 5.9billion barrels of natural-gas liquids (mean estimates).
“The Nile Delta Basin Province has significant natural gas potential, with estimated resources comparable to some of the other large provinces around the world, and bigger than anything we have assessed in the United States,” said USGS Energy Resources Program co-ordinator Brenda Pierce in a statement.
“This study is particularly germane in light of recent attention given to natural-gas resources as a potential bridging fuel in a transition to a carbon-constrained global economy.
“Taken together, the Nile Basin and Levant Basin assessments establish the eastern Mediterranean region as having world-class potential for undiscovered natural-gas resources.”
Worldwide consumption and production of natural gas was 110TCF in 2008, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
The three largest consuming countries that year were the US with 23TCF, Russia with 17TCF and Iran with 4TCF.