The global British Petroleum (BP) energy firm plans to invest $3.5 billion over the next three years to hunt for natural gas in Egypt, CEO Bernard Looney announced Monday.
Looney met Monday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Tarek el-Molla to discuss the plans.
The company plans to drill four natural gas wells between October and December 2023.
Two of the exploration wells will be in the offshore Raven field north of Alexandria and in western Mediterranean deep water. The company will also drill wells in the King Mariout Offshore and west Abu Qir areas.
BP has invested more than $35 billion in Egypt over the past six decades and currently produces around 60 percent of the country’s natural gas together with the Pharaonic Petroleum Company and Petrobel.
This past January, the Italian multinational Eni global energy firm announced the discovery of a “significant” natural gas reservoir at the Nargis-1 exploration well in the Nargis Offshore Area Concession in the eastern Mediterranean, about 309 meters below the waves.
Eni has operated in Egypt since 1954 and is currently the leading natural gas and oil producer in the country.
Egypt expects to produce about eight million tons of liquified natural gas (LNG) by the end of this year.
Israel, meanwhile, has approved an increase in natural gas exports to Egypt, according to an announcement last week by Energy Minister Israel Katz.
Approximately 3.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas will be added to Israel’s current exports to Egypt over the next 11 years, Katz said.
The exports will come from the underwater Tamar natural gas reservoir in Israel’s exclusive economic zone off the coast of Haifa.
Exports to Egypt from Israel’s largest natural gas reservoir, Leviathan, began in January 2020. Israel has also been exporting natural gas to Jordan from Tamar since January 2017.
