The Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources reviews the most important axes of the Ministry’s work at the current stage
Minister of Petroleum: Adding new production during the first quarter (July) September" It reached about 30 thousand barrels of oil per day and 133 million cubic feet per day
Drilling 77 exploratory wells succeeded in adding 54 verified discoveries, 40 of which were oil discoveries and 14 gas discoveries
Adding reserves of 71 million barrels of oil and 680 billion cubic feet of gas The number of agreements signed in 2024 reached seven agreements, with signature grants amounting to $13.5 million
The wheel of production development has already begun to turn, with positive indicators
Engineer Karim Badawi, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, reviewed during the weekly press conference held by Dr. Mustafa Madbouly, Prime Minister, after the government meeting, today; The Ministry’s work axes during the current phase, the initial performance indicators during the first quarter of the fiscal year 2024-2025, and the targets for the new year 2025, most important of which is the necessity of focusing on production activities and accelerating them as quickly as possible.
The conference began with an explanation By Engineer Karim Badawi, the objectives of the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources at the current stage, which are summarized in six axes.
In this regard, the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources indicated that the first axis highlights meeting the citizen’s needs for petroleum materials. By focusing on production and exploration activities, while emphasizing that this goal is a top priority for the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources.
The Minister explained that the second axis focuses on maximizing the benefit of petroleum wealth through refining and petrochemical plants to create added value, The third axis aims to achieve a jumpstart in the mining sector and maximize its added value, while the fourth axis focuses on working as one team with the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy. To provide the energy mix to drive the growth of the Egyptian economy and benefit from Egypt’s location for hydrogen production and energy trade. The fifth axis highlights the necessity of creating an attractive investment environment, while maintaining safety and energy efficiency and reducing emissions, while the sixth axis aims to enhance regional cooperation to attract investments in Egypt and the region.
Then the Minister of Petroleum moved on to talk about the challenges that faced the oil and gas sector during the recent period, following the slowdown in production and exploration due to the increase in partners’ dues due to several factors, including: the existence of a gap between the selling price and the cost, and the high levels of energy consumption with The increase in the price of energy globally, and the rise in the exchange rate.
Engineer Karim Badawi explained that all of these factors led to a decrease in production, the cessation of new drilling activities, an increase in the import bill and pressure on the hard currency, and thus the accumulation of more dues. Partners and increasing the gap again between the selling price and the cost.
Then the Minister spoke, during the press conference, about the measures taken to confront these challenges, which were represented by making periodic payments for partners’ dues to provide stable cash flows that lead to the resumption of development activities. Production, research and exploration, and offering investment stimulus packages coupled with more flexible pricing of products while working to attract new investors; This resulted in reducing the import gap and reducing the costs of providing products, leading to reducing the gap between price and cost, so that the problem of accumulating dues could be ended and the wheel of exploration and production could return without obstacles.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Petroleum and Wealth said Minerals: To achieve the ministry’s objectives, deal successfully with the current challenges, and implement the announced procedures, it was necessary to follow an integrated work approach to achieve the specified goals, by working with various state institutions, and coordinating within the Council of Ministers to secure the purchase of the necessary fuel, pay the dues of foreign partners, and work as one team. With the Central Bank and the Ministries of Electricity and Finance, as well as cooperation with the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the energy, environment and industry committees to support the wheel of investment through petroleum agreements, issuing their laws, and discussing and issuing any necessary legislative amendments to stimulate investment in the petroleum and mineral wealth sectors.
In this regard, the Minister stressed the importance of continuing close work with foreign partners, noting that the number of companies operating in the field of research, exploration and production reached (57) companies, including (8) major international companies and (6) specialized Egyptian companies, And more than (12) international companies specialized in the field of petroleum and technological services, explaining in this regard also that the incentive package was launched during the meeting with partners to enhance production activities on August 26, 2024.
In conclusion of the integrated work approach to achieve the goals The Ministry: The Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources reviewed the efforts made by inviting more than (20) Egyptian investors last September 30 to enter directly to invest in the field of developing obsolete fields to increase production from them, and a number of them expressed interest in these opportunities, indicating that the necessary steps are being taken. Therefore, he explained that among these steps is the signing of 5 memorandums of understanding with major national companies, with an emphasis on attracting new parties from the Egyptian private sector to invest in the petroleum and mineral resources sector.
And during the presentation he made during the weekly press conference of the President Ministers: The Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources reviewed the most important positive indicators achieved during the year 2024, especially in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2024-2025.
In this context, the Minister said: With regard to production, the current production has reached 1.4 million barrels. Daily equivalent oil, and the Ministry is striving to increase production rates to achieve self-sufficiency and reduce the import cost, noting that new production was added during the first quarter (July – (September) amounted to about 30 thousand barrels of oil per day and 133 million cubic feet per day.
The Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources referred to the most important activities of companies working in the field of production development, including Eni. Which will resume drilling work in Zohr field, with the driller arriving at the field during the month of December (2024), to drill two wells with the aim of returning to the production plan before the drilling work stopped by introducing new production of up to 220 million cubic feet per day, as well as the entry of rigs into the company’s onshore concession area. "wonderful" To begin drilling work, with the entry of 3 excavators to drill new wells and two excavators to repair the wells.
Engineer Karim Badawi added: As for BP, A plan was drawn up to accelerate the production of the second phase of the Raven project in January 2025 by pumping additional investments, with the start of drilling the King field at the beginning of the year 2025. With regard to the “Apache” company, 4 areas were assigned Exploration in the Western Desert for the company with the aim of quickly placing it on the production map, and an agreement was reached on the proposed incentive package and the pricing of the gas produced, so that production begins to increase gradually to reach (80) million cubic feet per day by the end of the year (2025).
The Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources also pointed out the success of Shell Company in starting production from the (Sibiya) well on October 3, 2024 at rates of 30 – 40 million cubic feet per day, and two more wells are expected to enter by the end of this year within the tenth phase of the deep West Delta region, bringing the total to ( 160 million cubic feet per day with investments of $227 million.
The minister explained, in reference to Egyptian companies working in the field of production, that the IPR company succeeded in adding new quantities of production, aiming to reach (15,000) A barrel of oil per day in production by the end of this year. ADES also succeeded in adding new quantities of production, aiming to reach (5,000) barrels of oil per day in production by the end of this year.
With regard to exploration, the Minister reviewed Petroleum and mineral resources are some of the activities of companies operating in the field of exploration, especially after the introduction of the new incentives package, referring initially to the results of the work for the year 2024 from January to October, where 77 exploratory wells were drilled, which succeeded in adding 54 verified discoveries, 40 of which were oil detection and 14 Gas was discovered, and reserves amounting to 71 million barrels of oil and 680 billion cubic feet of gas were added.
With regard to current activities, Engineer Karim Badawi reviewed the start-up of the “Chevron” and “Chevron” companies. And “ExxonMobil” By drilling exploratory wells in the western Mediterranean for the first time during the months of November and December 2024, with the completion of the regional seismic survey on September 28, 2024, for an area of 2,185 km2 in the western Mediterranean, as well as preparing to conduct the third phase of the regional seismic survey of the Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea regions.
The minister said: 17 new exploratory areas were assigned, namely: 8 obsolete fields in the Gulf of Suez and the Eastern Desert, 4 exploratory areas (Western Desert), 5 exploratory areas (Gulf of Suez – Western Desert) within the General Petroleum Authority’s auction. He added: With regard to the positive indicators in the field of agreements and investment opportunities, the number of agreements signed in 2024 reached 7 agreements with signature grants of 13.5 million dollars, a minimum of 367.5 investments and commitments to drill a minimum of 32 wells. Engineer Karim Badawy indicated that in August 2024, the Ministry announced 61 investment opportunities: 34 exploration areas affiliated with the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation, 15 obsolete fields affiliated with the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation, and 12 exploration areas in the Mediterranean Sea and the North Delta affiliated with the Egyptian Gas Holding Company. Natural, as a number of companies have expressed interest in 6 of them so far, and it is planned that during the end of this year and next year 2025, 15 new agreements will be signed, with signature grants of up to 20 million dollars, and a minimum investment of 748.5 million dollars, A commitment to drill a minimum of 46 wells. The Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources then moved on to talk about the most important features of the year 2025, stressing that the wheel of production development has already begun to turn with positive indicators, and that the most important features of the coming year are represented by 5 basic points, which are: accelerating the pace of development and production activities, which will help… Compensating the natural decrease, increasing production, reducing the import bill, accelerating exploration activities, which leads to accelerating the addition of new reserves, and maximizing the utilization of capacities in refineries such as the Midor refinery and petrochemical plants to maximize the added value and increase export revenues, and continuing the activities of delivering gas to homes and converting cars to run on natural gas. Which contributes to reducing the cost of butane and automobile fuel due to its positive effects, and finally launching the electronic portal for mineral wealth and offering a number of mining areas to attract investments. The Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources indicated that what was reviewed represents facts presented by the petroleum and mineral resources sector. This was reinforced by many positive reactions that were monitored from external reports in newspapers and international publications, which confirm that the future vision is positive and that this enhances the flow of investments. Among the most important headlines he referred to was the progress of interconnection discussions with the State of Cyprus to create a reliable energy corridor between Cyprus and Egypt. The credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s announced that Egypt’s rating was fixed at (B/B-) with a positive outlook for the Egyptian economy. Companies are also racing to drill in the Western Mediterranean region, and the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum intends to seriously seek to increase production and solve the problem of companies’ dues. Finally, there is enormous geological potential in Egypt in the field of mining.
The Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources concluded his speech by pointing out that everything that was reviewed previously embodies the continuous work to create a more attractive environment for investment, especially with the Ministry’s launch of the mining sector development strategy and its intention Promoting it at the United Kingdom Mining Conference next December, and issuing next month a policy paper to stimulate investment in the oil and gas sector in Egypt, with the aim of promoting various investment opportunities in the oil, gas, petrochemical, refining and mineral wealth sectors. The Ministry’s objectives in attracting investments are achieved by providing attractive investment opportunities, an encouraging legislative environment, and attention to investors. Regarding investment opportunities, the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources reviewed the existence of investment opportunities to increase production from obsolete fields, work to exploit the energy available from refineries and petrochemical plants, and launch electronic platforms to promote exploration areas while applying new economic models. Regarding the legislative environment, the government launched the Golden License Programme, petrochemicals were considered a strategic industry, the Gas Market Regulation Law was issued, and the Green Hydrogen and Its Derivatives Incentives Law was issued. With regard to encouraging investors, marketing plans have been prepared to attract investors with different investment preferences, and to work with local and international companies and investors, while seeking to attract investment funds and sovereign funds, and to attract capital investors and strategic investors, with an additional direction to attract national capital from the private sector. Ultimately, providing the maximum boost to the petroleum and mining sectors, increasing the contribution to the local national product and advancing economic development in Egypt.
