Egypt’s Badr El Din Petroleum Company (Bapetco) is preparing to undertake the largest multistage hydraulic fracturing operation in the country’s oil and gas sector, targeting the Obaiyed H18 horizontal well in the Western Desert. This initiative is part of a broader national effort to reverse declining natural gas production and enhance domestic energy supplies.

The upcoming project, scheduled to begin soon, will be carried out by the US-based oilfield services firm Halliburton. It forms a key component of Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources’ five-year strategy aimed at maximizing existing infrastructure, deploying advanced extraction technologies, and restoring output from reservoirs experiencing natural production declines.

The targeted Obaiyed H18 well was drilled in 2019 to a depth of approximately 5,630 meters, featuring a horizontal section extending over 1,600 meters through gas-bearing rock formations. The hydraulic fracturing operation seeks to increase reservoir permeability and expand the contact surface between the wellbore and gas-bearing layers, thereby facilitating more efficient natural gas flow and potentially raising production rates.

Bapetco developed a detailed technical study and execution plan over several months, outlining the step-by-step procedures required for this complex stimulation process. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves injecting fluids at high pressure into underground rock formations to create fractures that enhance the movement of trapped natural gas toward production wells.

This effort reflects Egypt’s broader energy strategy aimed at sustaining and boosting natural gas output domestically, in response to previous declines in production from aging fields. By applying advanced fracturing techniques to existing wells, the government hopes to strengthen energy security and reduce reliance on imports.