São Paulo – Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum, Tarek El-Molla, announced that his country will hold the first bid round for oil and gas exploration in the Red Sea before the end of the year. The tender should be issued after the data processing of a seismic research on the area. The information was published by the website of the newspaper Al Ahram, based on information given by the minister in a meeting of the Egypt-Canadian Business Council.
According to El-Molla, the oil and gas demands from the electrical sector, industries and households were met throughout this year. He also said that the natural gas domestic production reached 6.5 billion of cubic meters per day, achieving self sufficiency four years after the Mediterranean fields went into operation – Zohr, Atoll, Nooros and North Alexandria – with USD 27 billion in investments.
“The strategic plan includes diversifying energy supplies, addressing debt arrears, reforming the subsidy system, addressing domestic debt, improving governance of the sector, conducting structural reforms, and encouraging private sector investment,” added El-Molla.
The Zohr field was discovered in 2015 by Italian energy company Eni and it’s the Mediterranean’s largest natural gas field ever found. The Nooros field, located in the Nile Delta region, was discovered in July 2015, also by Eni. In March, Nooros reached a production of 32 million cubic meters of gas per day, a record for the fields of the Italian company in Egypt.
Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
