Against a global backdrop of a looing energy crisis, Egypt is working on maximising revenues from its oil and natural gas resources. The Petroleum Ministry has signed 99 oil agreements worth $17 billion over the past seven years, luring new international companies to operate in Egypt, a ministry statement said.
Seeking means to boost the nation’s oil and natural gas production, the government has pumped investments worth more than LE1.2 trillion (around $77 billion) into the petroleum sector over the past seven years, Minister of Petroleum Tarek el-Molla revealed last week.
The objective is to increase output to meet growing domestic demand and exports as part of Egypt’s endeavours
to become a regional hub for energy.
This end, the government has laid out a comprehensive plan to develop the petroleum sector in the coming years.
Minister el-Molla said a total of LE773 billion had been injected in finished projects, while investments worth LE295 billion were pumped in underway projects.
According to him, a total of 30 projects have been carried out to develop fields with investments worth LE514
billion between 2014 and 2021. The North African country’s crude oil and gas production reached an all-time
high at 1.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, over the past two fiscal years, el-Molla said.
Egypt’s petroleum sector launched in 2016 a development and modernisation project in line with the nation’s
vision for sustainable development by 2030. Seven programmes tackling all aspects of the petroleum industry have been carried out since 2016.
Minister el-Molla pointed out that the state’s economic reforms which targeted fixing price distortions of petroleum products have boosted the sector’s growth over the past years. He also praised border demarcation agreements with Saudi Arabia, Cyprus and Greece.
According to him, these agreements enabled Egypt to tap new areas for exploration and production. Moreover,
the state’s endeavours to expand the national natural gas network has been a success story reaching to 12.5 million housing units over 41 years, half of such number has been accomplished over the past seven years.
Financially, the sector has significantly recovered as the minister revealed earlier that the petroleum sector had repaid more than 85 per cent of the foreign partners’ dues, which were accumulated on the period between
2011 and June 2013.
As for climate change considerations, Egypt moved up to 19th place on the Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index (RECAI) in 2021, compared to the 20th place in the previous ranking, data from EY
showed.
The improvement of the country’s ranking reflects efforts to boost lowcarbon emissions and clean energy as
streamlined by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi. Egypt’s RECAI score was 57.8, EY data showed.
El-Molla took part in launching of the global initiative to reach zero emissions (Net Zero World Initiative), which was launched by the United States in Glasgow on Thursday.
Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Argentina, Chile and Ukraine are founding country partners, and additional countries are on track to join soon.
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