The first shipment of liquefied Propane with amount of 10 thousand tons, produced by United Gas Derivatives Company NGL Plant in Port Said, has left UGDC jetty in Damietta on the Mediterranean coast to Italy on the ship “Queen Zenobia” on March 2nd 2005.

His Excellency Eng. Sameh Fahmy, Minister of Petroleum declared that the start-up of the plant assures the success of the economic model implemented by the Ministry of Petroleum for attracting foreign investments to increase natural gas production. This results in more exports and foreign currency through the participation of international companies to fund these projects.

His Excellency added that UGDC project is one of the large scale projects in Egypt that aims at maximizing the production of value added natural gas derivatives for local and international markets and thus enhancing Egypt’s balance of trade.

It is worth mentioning that the annual designed production rates are 280 thousand tons of Propane, 330 thousand tons of LPG (covering about one third of the actual imported quantities of LPG in Egypt) and one million barrel of condensate. The project has Capital and investment costs of about 400 million dollars in equal shares between the three shareholders GASCO, BP and ENI.

The project design and execution were implemented by Enppi and Petrojet which reflects the Petroleum Sector ability to absorb and execute international modern technologies in gas industry.