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Egypt
HE Eng Tarek Al Mulla
3 International Bid Rounds on Oil and
Natural Gas Exploration in Egypt in 2016
Egypt’s
Petroleum
and
Mineral Resources Minister HE
Eng Tarek Al Mulla announced
that the Egyptian petroleum sector
will offer 3 new international bid
rounds in 2016 which include
27 onshore and offshore blocks
across Egypt. They will be
launched by the end of April 2016
in 11 areas, 6 of which in the
Western Desert and 5 in the Gulf
of Suez.
HE Al Mulla added in a
speech at the opening of the “8th
Conference for the Mediterranean
Countries”, held recently in
Egypt, under the slogan “The First
Step to Explore Gas & Petroleum
Treasures in the Mediterranean”,
that his country is well-qualified
to play an effective role in energy
on a regional level due to having
all potentials to be a strategic
hub for the natural gas trade, in
cooperation with international
petroleum companies, since gas
has become an important factor
to face current and future energy
challenges.
The Minister numbered the
challenges facing the Egyptian
petroleum
sector
including
amending the energy subsidies
programme, aging infrastructure
and refineries, and accumulating
debts of foreign partners. He
explained that in the past two
years, the Egyptian government
has taken many measures to
overcome these challenges and
worked on increasing search,
exploration, and production
to secure sustainable energy
supplies for domestic and future
needs.
The Minister said that the
new gas discoveries in the
Mediterranean, crowned by
Dhahr Gas Field discovery in
collaboration with Italy’s Eni,
represent success stories of the
Egyptian petroleum sector. These
new discoveries contribute to
boosting regional cooperation
in energy to secure safe energy
supplies at balanced prices.
They also help boosting energy
efficiency in the Mediterranean.
He stressed the great
importance of using latest
technologies
in
resolving
production
problems
and
working on nationalizing these
technologies through encouraging
scientific research via concluding
agreements
and
protocols
with Egyptian universities and
research centres to launch applied
research on the petroleum and
natural gas industry.