Marwa Abo AlMajd
Egypt’s petroleum sector is set to attract $10 billion of investment in its coming financial year, adding to the $30 billion that has been invested over the past three years, according to an industry head.
Mohamed Saad, head of the oil chamber at the Federation of Egyptian Industries, told Zawya last week investments in current and past financial years have “helped Egypt to achieve self-sufficiency” in natural gas production . Egypt’s new financial year begins on July 1.
Saad said that the natural gas sector had represented “an overload” on the state in the past as a result of weak production, but said the situation had now transformed, with the country transitioning from self-sufficiency towards becoming a natural gas exporter.
“During 2018 Egypt was able to achieve self-sufficiency of gas, where the volume of domestic production (rose) to 6.6 billion cubic feet per day, while the total volume of investments for oil and gas exploration and the development of fields producing them in 2018 amounted to about $10 billion,” he said.
“Shell , Eni And Mobil are playing an important role in pumping these investments in Egyptian petroleum sector,” he said.
He highlighted the North Delta, Western desert and areas of the Red Sea as the most important sites for petroleum exploration, whereas the Mediterranean Sea is seen as the most important site for natural gas exploration. He predicted that current exploration efforts in the country will begin to pay off by 2021.
“Egypt has two natural gas liquefaction plants with a capacity of about 2 billion cubic feet per day that (are) enabling Egypt to become a regional power centre in the region, besides helping us to convert all taxis to natural gas before the end of the year and use the rest of production in the petrochemicals industries and exporting to nearby countries,” Saad said.
Previously, Egypt’s minister of petroleum, Tarek Molla, had said that between 2014-18 Egypt had signed 63 petroleum deals. Exploration agreements for 12 new petroleum concessions were awarded by the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation in February, which it said would lead to investments of between $750-$800 million.
(Reporting by Marwa Abo Almajd; Editing by Michael Fahy)
ZAWYA 2019
