Foreign oil, gas investments in Egypt hit $10 bln in 2017-18 - minister - REUTERS

CAIRO, AUGUST 24, 2018 / 5:46 PM 

Reporting by Ali Abdelaty, writing by John Davison; Editing by Jan Harvey

Foreign investment in Egypt’s oil and gas sector rose to $10 billion in the 2017-2018 financial year, Petroleum Minister Tarek El Molla said in an interview with state-run Al Ahram newspaper published on Friday.

That is up by nearly a quarter from 8.1 billion in the previous year. El Molla was quoted by the paper as saying he expected the same volume of investments in the current fiscal year. Egypt’s fiscal year runs from July to June.

Italian oil company Eni said last month that the production capacity of Egypt’s giant Mediterranean Zohr gas field stood at 1.6 billion cubic feet a day and would reach 2 billion by September.

Egypt plans to become a regional hub for the trade of liquefied natural gas after a string of major discoveries in the Mediterranean that are expected to make Egypt self-sufficient in gas by the end of 2018. 

Azeri natural gas sellers book 8.6 Bcm/year long-term capacity to Italy: TAP - S&P GLOBAL PLATTS

Brussels, 23 Aug 2018 | 11:28 UTC
Author: Siobhan Hall; Editor: Alisdair Bowles

• 10 Bcm/year Greece
• -Italy TAP gas link to open in 2020
• Shah Deniz 2 sellers have 25-year capacity contracts
• TAP to offer short-term capacity in future auctions

Brussels — Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz 2 natural gas field producers have booked around 8.6 Bcm/year of long-term capacity to Italy in the planned 10 Bcm/year Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, developer TAP's head of communication, Lisa Givert, told S&P Global Platts on Thursday.

TAP is the last leg of the so-called Southern Gas Corridor that is to enable Europe to import gas initially from the 16 Bcm/year Shah Deniz 2 field, a new supply source.

Apache to increase oil and gas exploration investment in Egypt to $1bn - HYDROCARBONS TECHNOLOGY

23 AUGUST 2018

US-based oil and gas company Apache has reportedly unveiled plans to increase its annual investment in exploration activities in Egypt to $1bn.

The decision comes after Apache CEO John Christmann held a meeting with Egypt’s Petroleum Minister Tarek al-Molla, Xinhua reported, citing a statement released by the Egyptian Petroleum Ministry.

The company’s intention to increase exploration is aimed at supporting Egypt’s reserves while helping to increase the country’s oil and gas production.

In a statement, the ministry said: “Christmann and Al-Molla discussed means to expand Apache’s exploration activities in Egypt, as well as the company’s ongoing projects and future investment plans in the country.”

The company is planning to form a partnership to prepare a five-year plan for oil exploration in the country.

The proposed plan will outline the expected investments and production using advanced technologies in the oil and gas industry, according to the news agency.

Christmann also lauded the economic progress made by the Egypt Government in the oil field over the past three years through investment-friendly policies.

Last month, Apache reached a deal with Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum to invest $9bn towards exploration and production of oil and gas in the country’s Western Desert.

Operating in Egypt for 22 years, Apache is one of the largest oil companies in the country’s Western Desert.

Israel comes to Houston, seeking partners to develop gas reserves - HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Aug. 22, 2018 
Jordan Blum

At a time when energy companies are positioning themselves for a lower-carbon world by investing heavily in natural gas, it would seem relatively easy to sell them on developing huge reserves of the cleaner burning fuel. Unless those reserves are in the territorial waters of Israel.

Nearly a decade after natural gas was discovered off its coast, Israel is still struggling to enlist foreign firms to explore its vast deposits in the Mediterranean Sea, in part because oil and gas companies are wary of alienating Arab countries in which they have long done business. So far only one foreign company, Noble Energy of Houston, is operating there. And last year, when Israel launched its first-ever auction of offshore blocks, it attracted just two bidders — a Greek company and a group from India.

This history is what brought Shay Luvshis to Houston. Luvshis, 38, is Israel’s energy consul, sent here to recruit American and international oil and gas firms to explore Israeli waters in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. About year after opening an office here, the Energy Ministry’s first outside of Israel, Luvshis says he and other officials have held advanced talks with Exxon Mobil, the French oil major Total and the Australian oil and gas company Woodside Petroleum, among others.

Cabinet appoints committee to renegotiate gas agreement (updated) - CYPRUS MAIL

AUGUST 21, 2018

George Psyllides 

The cabinet on Tuesday appointed a committee that will enter talks with energy companies over the revenue sharing agreement for the 4.5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) Aphrodite gas finding in an offshore block.

“The best option is to try and find a mutually acceptable solution with the consortium so that the Aphrodite reserve is developed as soon as possible,” Energy Minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis said after the meeting.

The minister said development of the reserve would have a lot of financial and geopolitical benefits.

Aphrodite lies in block 12 of Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone and it is Cyprus’s first gas finding, discovered in 2011.

The Houston-based Noble Energy Inc. is the leader of a consortium with the participation of Israel’s Delek and Britain’s BG (British Gas), a subsidiary of Shell.

Lakkotrypis said the government had been informed at the end of last year that the consortium had come to a preliminary agreement with Shell, which operates an LNG terminal in Egypt, to sell gas to them.

The consortium also said that because of the low international price of oil, the project would not be viable and they had asked for a review of the financial conditions in the existing agreement.

Egypt signs 2 new agreements for oil, gas exploration - EGYPT TODAY

CAIRO, Mon, Aug. 20, 2018

Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek el-Molla signed two new agreements for the exploration of oil and natural gas in Sinai and the Suez Gulf with investments of $65 million.

The minister also signed grants of $3.5 million, an official statement revealed.

The first agreement is signed with General Petroleum Company (GPC) in Sinai to improve its production in the frame of the Ministry of Petroleum’s plans to increase production and support the national companies working in oil and exploration field.

The statement referred that the second agreement was signed with the Petroleum Corporation and Zaafarana Petroleum Company, Oceaneer Zaafarana, and Sahary for Oil and Gas in the Gulf of Suez.

Molla announced that the number of signed petroleum agreements reached 61 new agreements since 2017 with a minimum investment of $14 billion to explore oil and gas in Egypt’s Egypt's land and sea areas.

More energy reforms needed, IMF tells Egypt - PETROLEUM ECONOMIST

20 August 2018
Gerald Butt

The Egyptian economy continued to improve in 2018, according to the organisation, but further measures are needed

In 2016, the International Monetary Fund agreed to help Egypt's economy recover from years of crisis by providing it with disbursements totaling $12bn. The deal was conditional on the government reducing subsidies on basic goods and services, including sources of energy.

Fuel subsidies, according to the IMF, have represented "an important share of budget spending in the past, contributing to increased deficits and debt, and crowding out spending on education and health".

The IMF, in its latest review of the Egyptian economy, praised the government's performance since the loan programme began, saying that its "fiscal consolidation plan remains on track".

Government may renegotiate deal with Noble Energy, spokesman says - CYPRUS MAIL

Licensees in Cyprus' EEZ as of August 2018

AUGUST 20, 2018

Stelios Orphanides

Government spokesman Prodromos Prodromou said that the cabinet may decide to renegotiate the revenue sharing agreement for the 4.5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) Aphrodite gas finding, the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) reported on Monday.

The cabinet, which is meeting on Tuesday at the presidential summer residence in Troodos, may decide whether the renegotiation will commence and if yes, its direction and terms, he said according to CNA.

“Decisions are about to be taken regarding demands raised by companies with which the Republic is in cooperation in Aphrodite,” the spokesman was quoted as saying. “Despite challenges or obstacles some people attempt to raise, we are now at a point that decisions of strategic importance have to be taken”.