The Former Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Osama Kamal, said that Egypt has benefited from the oil price decline during the last period by storing sufficient quantities of oil, according to his call on Amr Adib’s El Hekaya Program.

He noted that Egypt will neither be directly affected positively nor negatively by the current collapse of oil prices, but this might contribute in decreasing the burden of financial support from the public budget. Kamal discussed that its only negative effect would be when American oil companies cut their exploration and discovery investments in the different countries including Egypt.

US oil future prices declined to below zero on Monday 20 April. The price of West Texas Intermediate Crude reached to $-37.63 due to the industries’ halt and lockdown driven by the coronavirus outbreak.

Kamal pointed out that Egypt used to import 35-40% of the oil consumed in the Egyptian domestic market which has declined due to the imposed curfew, leading to a consumption drop in octane and diesel by 20-25%.

Additionally, he said that Egypt now is importing a shipment of diesel and another of octane, meaning that it has sufficient reserves of oil, adding that there are no enough capacities for storing more oil production.

The former minister noted that the current situation of oil prices drop is temporary and will end by the closure of May’s contract on April 21.

It is worth mentioning that oil prices started to decrease gradually since September 2019 because of the oversupply and reached to the lowest price after the pandemic.