Cairo - Arab Today
Egyptian Oil Minister Tarek El Molla has signed three offshore oil and gas exploration and production deals worth a total of at least $220 million with France’s Total, Britain’s BP, and Italian oil major ENI’s Egyptian subsidiary IEOC, the ministry said on Wednesday.
The deals include drilling for six wells and a signing bonus of $9 million and are the result of a tender called by Egyptian state gas board EGAS. They are all in exploration blocks in the Egyptian Mediterranean Sea.
The first deal, with a consortium of BP and IEOC, is worth $75 million for an exploration block in the North Ras El Esh block; the second, with a consortium of all three companies, is in the North El Hammad block and is worth $80 million, and the third, with BP alone, is in the North Tabia block and worth $65 million.
Earlier on Wednesday, an EGAS official told Reuters the board had determined Egypt needed around 100 shipments of liquefied natural gas worth $2.2 billion in 2017 and had already secured 60 shipments.
Source: Arab News