American petroleum and natural gas explorer and producer Noble Energy and its partners have acquired a 39% equity interest in the Eastern Mediterranean Gas (EMG) company, owner of the EMG pipeline.
The EMG pipeline will be used to transport natural gas volumes into Egypt under the company’s gas supply agreements with Egyptian gas supplier Dolphinus. With this acquisition, the total Noble Energy’s net acquisition investment in the EMG Pipeline amounts to $185m.
Noble Energy holds an effective interest of 10% in the pipeline. Located primarily offshore, the 90km EMG pipeline connects the Israeli and Egyptian pipeline networks.
Noble Energy Offshore senior vice-president Keith Elliott said: “The closing of the EMG acquisition will support delivery of natural gas from the Tamar and Leviathan fields into Egypt, and represents a major milestone toward Egypt’s goal of becoming a regional energy hub.
“This acquisition, combined with our recently announced Dolphinus gas sales contracts offtake increases, provides further confidence in both the long-term export market and growing cash flows from our Eastern Mediterranean assets.”
Equity interest acquisition in the pipeline was contingent upon technical third-party recertification, which included intelligent pigging and pressure testing completion of the pipeline. It was also conditional on the finalisation of several commercial agreements.
Noble Energy plans to use the pipeline to accommodate its existing natural gas contracts from Leviathan and Tamar into Egypt. Once the Leviathan field starts production in January 2020, Noble Energy aims to increase the production to 650 million cubic feet (MMcf) a day by mid-2022.
In October 2018, Noble Energy signed a number of agreements to support natural gas delivery from the Leviathan and Tamar fields into Egypt.
