Egypt seals multiple energy deals with both domestic and international oil giants
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Alaina
- . January 3, 2021
- . Update: January 8, 2021 11:26 pm
On Friday, Egypt’s oil and petroleum minister informed said that the country signed nine oil and natural gas exploration deals worth $1 billion with both domestic and international energy companies. With regard to the recent agreements Tarek El Molla said, “Egypt seeks luring new international investments in gas and oil exploration, and concluding deals with big companies as a priority.” The ministry added that the deals were signed with few of the industry biggies including Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, Total and Shell.
Mediterranean is known for its rich energy resources and the country said that these deal would enable the companies to conduct their exploration drive along the eastern and western Mediterranean coast and even near the Red Sea. As per the deal, six large oil and gas companies would dig and drill 17 wells to explore and extract oil and gas from the area.The field test conducted by Italy’s Eni in September revealed that the country’s Nile Delta, offshore region is rich in natural gas. Initial evaluation findings carried out through testing wells as well as the associated reservoirs unveiled that the Great Nooros Area is home to approximately 4 trillion cubic feet of gas.
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Back is 2016, Eni helped Egypt in exploring its energy resources in the Eastern Mediterranean. It helped the North African country in gaining immensely from Eni’s discovery of gas reserves in Zohr field. The country is looking at encashing on these resources. Last year, Egypt signed major energy deals with US oil industry leaders Chevron, Anglo-Dutch Shell and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala giving them right to explore for oil and gas in the Red Sea to push for the search of new hydrocarbon reserves.After it observed the working of few companies, the country provided licences with concessions in the western and eastern desert regions, including the Nile Delta and the Gulf of Suez. Cairo highlighted that it would soon launch another program to conduct an exploration drive in the blocks in the Red Sea.
Red Sea, another rich energy reservoir, is equally popular in the region as Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of oil, said that it was also looking at exploring the Red Sea reserves in its territorial waters. To entice more companies for preliminary investigation, last year the Riyadh announced the discovery of large quantities of gas in the Red Sea. The Kingdom said that it would conduct an investment feasibility study for that same and intensify exploration plans over the coming two years.
