UK supermajor BP is on track to begin production from its deep-water Raven field in the West Nile Delta (WND) off Egypt by the end of this year.

Start-up of the development of the high-profile field, which is now 99.6% complete and is the final stage of the WND project, will further boost Egypt’s gas production and help sustain liquefied natural gas exports.

Ramp-up to full production is expected to occur next year, delivering 160,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Raven will be key to BP’s goal of achieving its overall production targets over the next two years, BP executives said during a webcast to discuss the company's third-quarter results. BP posted a $749 million loss in the quarter, mainly due to impairments and weaker upstream results.

Peak production from WND is expected to top 1.4 billion cubic feet per day, which is equivalent to about 20% of Egypt’s current gas production.

BP and its partner, German player WintershallDea, will have developed a total of 5 trillion cubic feet of gas and 55 million barrels of condensate reserves from the three phases of the WND project.

The project consists of five gas fields across two BP-operated offshore concession blocks — North Alexandria and West Mediterranean Deepwater.

First WND gas began flowing in March 2017 from Taurus and Libra, which were fast-tracked to add up to 600 million cubic feet per day to the Egyptian national gas grid.

The project was launched after protracted negotiations as BP dug in for attractive commercial terms from the Egyptian government.

Raven, the third and final stage of the West Nile Delta development, includes eight wells and has been developed as a deep-water long distance tie-back to shore, where the new Raven onshore plant has been built adjacent to the Giza/Fayoum facilities, which is the second phase of WND.

BP has an 82.75% stake in the project, with Wintershall Dea on 17.25%.

Rising production from WND and the offshore Zohr field, operated by Italy’s Eni, have helped Egypt achieve domestic self-sufficiency in the past year while providing additional supplies to increase LNG production from the Shell-operated Idku facilities in the Mediterranean Sea.

The twin Idku plants had to shut down following the 2011 revolution, which led to severe gas shortages amid rising consumption and a lack of upstream investment by international players.

Raven will help boost Egypt’s gas production to 7.5 Bcfd from the current level of 7 Bcfd, with priority to meet domestic needs rather than exports.

Zohr is now producing around 2.7 Bcfd. The field was pumping 2 Bcfd at the beginning of this year.

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BP on target for Raven start-up by end of year