Firms stop Egypt drilling, evacuate staff
Cairo, January 31, 2011
Several European energy companies have suspended drilling and evacuated some staff in Egypt due to political unrest, but they said on Monday that gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) production had not been affected.
Britain's BP, which produces a large share of the North African country's oil and gas, and Spain's Gas Natural, operator of an LNG plant, said they were evacuating some employees but that their operations were unaffected.
Egypt is one of the world's top 10 exporters of LNG, which is gas cooled to liquid form for transport by tanker, but it consumes a lot of the gas it produces.
Norway's Statoil also evacuated some staff, and along with Britain's BG Group, suspended drilling activities, but BG-operated gas and LNG production continued as normal.
"We have decided to stop the drilling operations for the moment to be on the safe side," a Statoil spokesman said, adding that the company had let some staff leave the country as the uprising against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-rule intensified.
"They left during the weekend as a precautionary measure as the situation is unstable and we don't know how it is going to develop," he said.
Protesters intensified their campaign on Monday to force Mubarak to quit as world leaders struggled to find a solution to a crisis that has torn up the Middle East political map.
BG, which produces about a third of Egypt's gas and holds a similar share of the Egypt LNG export project, has stopped drilling, but production from its West Delta Deep Marine offshore field -- a 50/50 joint venture with Malaysia's Petronas -- continued as normal.
"Drilling activities have been temporarily suspended," a BG spokesman he said.
"Gas production continues unaffected and LNG operations continue unaffected ... All our employees, contractors and their families are accounted for and safe."
A spokeswoman for Spain's Gas Natural, which operates the Damietta LNG export plant on the north coast, said it had started evacuating non-essential staff and their families. - Reuters