In a bid to explore potential opportunities in the oil and gas sector, Egypt Oil & Gas (EOG) Committee’s Executive Board gathered on February 4 to set strategic plans for 2025.
The meeting, held under the chairmanship of Greg McDaniel, VP of Apache Egypt Assets and Country Manager and attended by 25 leaders of the EOG Committee, included five key presentations about the committee’s various task forces, including Brownfields, Digitalization, Sustainable Development, Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE), and Women in Energy.
CEO of Egypt Oil & Gas and Committee Co-Chairman, Mohamed Fouad highlighted the committee’s role since its establishment in 2012, in facilitating communication between the government and investors for better development of the oil and gas industry. “As we prioritize today’s opportunities and challenges, the Egypt Oil & Gas Committee plays an important role in supporting the government in building a sustainable future for our industry,” Fouad said during his opening speech.
Task Force Highlights
During the meeting, Osama El Shenoufy, Sales Director of Weatherford North Africa, reviewed the committee’s efforts and initiatives made for brownfield projects in Egypt, the past challenges, and the steps being taken to address them.
He also reviewed the field visits conducted in cooperation with the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources (MoPMR) to understand challenges on the ground and develop an action plan based on these insights while capitalizing on the EOG’s previous White Paper on brownfields presented at the EOG Convention last November.
“The objective is to capitalize on previous effort and have a way forward for identifying the strategic solutions. Also, it is important to capitalize on the Center of Excellence, where we are capturing our initiatives, and this is coordinated with the EGPC. Because we need to have the Center of Excellence in order to share our knowledge and experience,” said El Shenoufy.
For the Brownfield Task Force, the focus in 2025 will be on building the EOG White Paper’s findings and updating it. Additionally, a knowledge-sharing platform will be created to document and share field experiences and challenges, he noted.
In respect of Digitalization in the sector, Osama Salem, Market Leader of AVEVA Egypt and North Africa, discussed the committee’s efforts for operation and production efficiency in 2024. He reviewed achievements of Agile Process Stimulation projects including a 3-5% production increase and a 1-2% cost reduction in a three-month project using process stimulation software.
“In the oil and gas sector, we divided five pillars in digital transformation. The first pillar is about the ERP systems in general. The second pillar is about infrastructure and cyber security. The third one is command centers and SCADA. The fourth one is artificial intelligence, predictive maintenance, and whatever we can use algorithm to predict and to do the data analysis. The last one is related to brownfields, field development, and whatever data we will need to present KPI, or that will be input to software,” said Salem.
He noted that the Digitalization Task Force plans this year will include the mining sector in addition to optimizing digitalization in the value chain across oil and gas, downstream, midstream, and upstream sectors. Besides, the Digitalization Task Force will hold a digital transformation Workshop in the third quarter and a strategic round table with the MOPMR and C-level Executives in the fourth as he noted.
Meanwhile, Ahmed El-Gabry, Social Performance Manager of Shell Egypt, highlighted the committee’s objectives that are focused on four main aspects: education, awareness, environmental campaigns, and health.
He affirmed the sector’s ability to excel in the good life through commitment to some of the Sustainable Development Goals emphasizing the need to raise the bar in the oil and gas sector.
He also reviewed some successful CSR national campaigns for the oil and gas sector such as blood donation campaign and holding HSE lectures for engineering students.
“Two task forces joined together, the HSE and the CSR. We were working together as a team to develop the faculty of engineering students and give them HSE lectures. It was surprising to find that HSE concept was not covered in their curriculum. We gathered comprehensive HSE materials and provided them with both theoretical knowledge and practical soft skills. This initiative was particularly impactful as it coincided with maintenance work at the university, allowing us to offer a hands-on session on scaffolding safety,” said El Gabry highlighting that it was one of their most successful campaigns and Ain Shams University had requested to incorporate it as a permanent part of their fifth-year curriculum for all engineering graduates.
After the SD Task Force presentation, Khaled Abu Bakr, the Chairman and Co-founder of TAQA Arabia and Chairman of Egyptian Gas Association sought with El Gabry some approaches to implement in technical schools to bring high results and impact for education in Egypt.
“We can connect the Committee with all different schools. Then, we as a Committee choose where we can bring value added or maybe select one topic like the HSE that we have in the oil and gas sector,” Abu Bakr told El Gabry.
For 2025 plans, the SD Task Force aims to implement a renewable energy project in a major hospital to eliminate power cut risks in the first quarter and second quarter and plan a health campaign in the second quarter. In the third and fourth quarters, the focus will shift to youth capacity building, supporting women empowerment, and small-scale agriculture projects. The fourth quarter will also see efforts on water conservation and access to clean water.
As part of the Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) Task Force, Abdelaziz Fadel, QHSE Manager of Halliburton Egypt and Libya, reviewed the Task Force’s efforts to understand and share best practices.
“The plan is to have the enablers in order to start our vision. Once we have a focal point from the Ministry of Petroleum as well as a HSE strategy, vision, mission, and objectives, we can build our own as well,” he said, referring to the many steps taken to enhance cooperation between the ministry and the different companies working in this sector to start implementing the HSE strategy.
Besides identifying a HSE strategy from the Ministry, the HSE Committee Task Force is planning a special campaign during the month of Ramadan. It is a safety guide published in collaboration with the MOPMR that has been running for the past five years and aims to ensure the safety of workers particularly in the fields during Ramadan.
Eleanor Rowley, Managing Director of Capricorn Energy Egypt, reviewed workshops and sessions held by the EOG Committee for empowering women and overcoming career challenges in the energy industry, emphasizing the committee’s goal to help women achieve their full potential.
“Our mission is that we want to see women in our energy industry always achieve their full potential and to create a vibrant network that inspires and supports women, from fresh graduates to senior management, on their career journeys in energy,” said Rowley.
“When I returned to Egypt in 2021, I was pleased to see that we have many, many women in the industry in Egypt at all levels—both on the government side, the IOCs side, technical and administrative roles, young through to senior positions,” she added.
The Women in Energy Task Force will hold an event called “She in Energy” in March. The Task Force will also work on developing resources and tips for other groups, including young leaders, technical disciplines, and fresh graduates.
Enhancing Visibility and Communication
Besides the presentations, the Committee leaders discussed some key points to focus on in 2025. They emphasized the importance of enhancing the committee’s visibility to communicate more effectively with local communities and the government.
“I think we need to be more visible. The original objective of the EOG Committee, since I joined some years ago, is to make sure our contributions to the local community and the ministry are clear. We need to make sure that we all speak with one voice, and we can speak about the achievements of different task forces,” Sameh Sabry, Senior Vice President & MD – Middle East & North Africa Harbour Energy.
Egypt Country Manager at VAALCO Energy, Iman Hill agreed and suggested that to ensure real delivery, each Task Force promote one or two projects that have measurable KPIs and focus on achieving them in 2025.
“In terms of real delivery, there are a lot of good programs in all the task forces, but it might be an idea to think about each task force promoting one or two projects that has measurable KPIs in 2025 and the others are still in the funnel, but it gives that much focus,” said Hill.
