PetroShorouk Petroleum, the operator of Egypt’s Zohr gas field, is planning to issue the invitation to bid on the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for phase two of its Zohr Gas Field Development Project in 2018, according to industry sources.

 “We don’t know yet if it will be issued in the first quarter or the second quarter, but it will definitely be issued at some point in 2018,” said one source.

 The exact value of the second phase of the project is not known, but it is expected to be a multi-billion-dollar contract.

 In May this year, Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El Molla said that the total investment in the Zohr field development project in the Shorouk concession area would come to $16bn.

 The Zohr gas field was discovered by Italy’s Eni and is the biggest in the Mediterranean, holding an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet of gas.

 PetroShorouk Petroleum is a joint venture of Eni, the state-owned Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) and Russia’s Rosneft.

 On 9 October, Rosneft announced that it had closed a deal to acquire a 30 per cent stake in the concessions agreement for the development of Zohr field from Eni. The cost of Rosneft's stake acquisition was $1.13bn.

 As part of phase one of the Zohr development project the gas field is expected to start production in late November, according to industry sources.

At the end of phase one it is expected to be producing about one billion cubic feet of gas per day.

 Once the later stages of the project are complete the field is expected to have a capacity of 2.7 billion cubic feet per day.

 The Zohr gas field was discovered by the Italian oil and gas company Eni. It is the biggest gas field in the Mediterranean and holds an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet of gas.

In February 2016, Tarek el-Molla announced that Italy’s Saipem and Belayim Petroleum Company (Petrobel), a joint venture between the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) and Eni, had been selected as the main contractors for phase one of the development.

 El Molla said that the two firms had been nominated in cooperation with local contractors Engineering for the Petroleum & Process Industries (ENPPI) and Petrojet.

 The value of deals signed by Petrobel and Saipem was not revealed.