The Egypt-focused privately held oil and gas company Apex International Energy has increased its oil and gas production by 62 per cent since the beginning of the year, according to Thomas Maher, the company’s president and CEO.

The company’s working interest production is now 11,100 barrels of oil equivalent a day (boe/d), 4,200 more than it was at the start of 2023.

The company acquired oil and gas assets from a IEOC Production, a subsidiary of the Italian oil and gas company Eni, in the first half of 2023.

Apex acquired all of IEOC’s interests in the Ras Qattara, West El-Razzak, East Kanayis and West Abu Gharadig concessions, which it operates through Farah Petroleum Company (PetroFarah), the joint venture operating company of Apex and state-owned Egyptian General Petroleum Company.

The closing of the acquisition for the last of these interests, West Abu Gharadig, occurred in June 2023, and Apex assumed full operation of the acquired assets on 1 July 2023.

Apex also acquired a 25 per cent interest in the IEOC-operated East Obaiyed and Southwest Meleiha concessions.

As of 1 July, Apex’s organically developed working interest production in Southeast Meleiha stood at 7,100 barrels a day (b/d), and the incremental working interest production added by the acquired assets stood at 2,900 b/d, giving Apex a combined working interest production in the Western Desert of 10,000 b/d.

In July 2023, Apex launched a 32-well workover and repair programme in the Aghar, Raml, Faras and Zarif fields.

This programme encompasses recompletions and returning the wells to production and has resulted in a 1,000-b/d increase in production to date, to 3,900 b/d – an increase of 34 per cent.

In September 2023, Apex commenced reporting its first natural gas production with the start-up of the Faramid gas project in IEOC-operated East Obaiyed, in which Apex has a 25 per cent interest.

Gas production is currently 24.4 million cubic feet a day, or 4,000 boe/d, of which 1,000 boe/d is attributable to Apex.

Maher said: “The addition of the six acquired concessions, the comprehensive workover programme executed by our team in the acquired fields and the start-up of the Faramid gas project have contributed to increasing our working interest production by 62 per cent, or 4,200 boe/d, since the beginning of the year.

“Importantly, these increases have been accomplished without a lost-time incident and while lowering unit operating costs by 20 per cent, which is a tribute to the dedication and hard work of the Apex and PetroFarah teams.”

Maher added: “Our engineers and geoscientists have identified additional workover candidates, and with the continuation of our ongoing development and exploration drilling campaign, we look forward to further increases in production in the coming months.”