Two Int'l Companies Pump Investments worth $340 Mln to Boost Oil, Gas Production in Egypt

Egypt's Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources signed two agreements with international companies on Sunday to pump investments worth $340 million to boost oil and gas production in the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Suez.

The Egyptian Minister of Petroleum Karim Badawi, and the CEO of Shell-Egypt signed an agreement between the Egyptian Petroleum Authority, Shell and Malaysia's Petronas to pump additional investments in the West Delta Deep Marine area to implement the 10th phase to increase production rates and reserves that can be extracted from natural gas.

The plans for the 10th and 11th phase projects for the development and production of natural gas in the West Delta in the deep waters of the Mediterranean Sea were reviewed, as well as the importance of pushing forward the work of the two projects, especially after signing today's agreement to pump new investments into the 10th phase project. 

The importance of cooperation between the petroleum sector and Shell was also emphasized to urge ways to accelerate the start of work on developing the West Mina and Khofu natural gas discoveries that the company achieved in the Mediterranean Sea.

The total investments in these agreements amount to $222 million, and a commitment to drill 3 wells to produce natural gas and establish marine facilities to put these wells on the production map.

Work is currently underway to drill the three wells to put them on the production map at a rate ranging between 150 and 200 million cubic feet before the end of this year.

An agreement was also signed with Kiron Energy Company, stipulating the commitment of the Geisum and Tawila West area in the Gulf of Suez between the Authority and Kiron and Kufpec companies to pump new investments to continue development operations, increase production rates, and expand the area of ​​research and exploration, with total investments amounting to about $120 million.

Also, a commitment was made to drill another 9 wells, including 3 exploratory wells to increase exploration work, which will contribute to increasing production from about 21,000 barrels of crude oil per day to 26,000 bpd.