Hill International Petrol Egypt has won a contract from state-owned Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (Egas) to provide project management services for a planned $200m natural gas compression station in Dahshur.

The Cairo-based firm will provide project management services for one year in a contract worth an estimated $1m, the company said in a 13 April statement.

The new compression station, 40 kilometres from the capital will enable Egas to sustain the required pressure in the Upper Egypt Pipeline to ensure the continuous supply of natural gas to industrial and commercial users along the pipeline route.

Egypt’s hydrocarbons reserves are largely concentrated in offshore oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Suez, the Nile Delta and the Mediterranean Sea. The country has some 77.2 trillion cubic feet (tcf) in June 2009.

Despite these reserves, development of the country’s energy sector, particularly gas, has been mixed. The state-run Egas was only able to award four of the seven exploration blocks on offer in its licensing round in May 2009 (MEED 21:2:10).

After six months of talks, oil majors were offered one-off terms of $4-4.50 a million British thermal units (BTUs), rather than the normal $2.65 a million BTUs, as compensation for the high cost of drilling in the deep water blocks in early 2009.