Egypt Daily News – Egypt is looking to the Italian company Eni and the American company Apache to boost its natural gas production and achieve self-sufficiency in this sector.
Recently, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and Petroleum Minister Karim Badawy met with officials from these companies to discuss strategies for settling outstanding payments to encourage them to continue their development and exploration efforts.
The agreement reached in the meeting includes a commitment to pay the foreign partners’ share of the extracted natural gas and allows for the possibility of exporting part of Eni’s gas share during the winter months.
As of the end of June, Egypt paid $1.3 billion to foreign oil and gas companies, with outstanding dues amounting to about $4.5 billion. Eni and Apache make up half of this total.
To further facilitate this collaborative effort, Egypt plans to address the overdue payments of $3.2 billion to foreign oil companies in three installments throughout the current fiscal year, starting with a $1.2 billion payment in October.
Amidst these developments, Egypt is also focused on increasing the availability of natural gas in the latter half of the year to support the electricity sector during peak summer demand.
Due to local production declines, Egypt recently secured 21 shipments of liquefied gas and has issued tenders for additional supplies.
Currently, natural gas production in Egypt has decreased by approximately 100 million cubic feet per month, mainly due to aging fields.
With Egypt’s total production at around 4.6 billion cubic feet per day, it falls short of the local consumption needs of about 6.2 billion cubic feet per day, resulting in a deficit of approximately 1.6 billion cubic feet.
The partnerships with Eni and Apache are seen as essential for ramping up production and potentially regaining self-sufficiency in the natural gas sector.
