Features / Overview
Will Foreign Investments Tip the Scales for Egypt’s Oil Industry?
Five years of political instability and internal struggles have dealt a huge blow to the already fragile Egyptian economy. A reality that manifested itself in the dwindling foreign currency reserves of the Egyptian state, threatening pay debts its capacity to import goods and to foreign partners.
Egypt Is Not Suffering from $30 Oil. Here Is Why.
Having reduced its foreign arrears from $7b in 2013 to $3b in 2015, discovered the largest Mediterranean natural gas field, and received investment commitments for a combined $24b from BP and Eni, Egypt’s energy sector seems to have a positive outlook, while other neighbors suffer.
Egyptian Industries Between the Dollar Crisis and the Energy Challenges
Going into 2016, most of us are reflecting on the year gone by and looking forward to the year ahead. Many in the Egyptian industry, however, may be less than optimistic about 2016. The past year has been difficult for Egyptian industry, which has been consistently inhibited by dollar and energy shortages. Despite efforts to alleviate these challenges, these problems are not likely to be fully resolved any time soon. Looking to the year ahead, it may be helpful to recap the roots of these problems, how they affected Egyptian industry in 2015 and their possible outlook for 2016.
The Dilemma of Egypt’s Refining Goals
For Egypt, becoming a regional petrochemical and refined product exporter would be a dream come true. If this happens, Cairo would be a heavy-hitting geographic power player, able to lessen the burden on the state budget at a time when refined product imports are less accessible in foreign reserves.
Electricity in Egypt: The Whole Picture
One of the first sentences that a non Arabic speaker learns upon moving to Egypt is probably ‘Mafish kaharaba’, or “there is no electricity”. In summer, especially, and quite notably since the Revolution, Egypt has been suffering from an acute electricity crisis.
PROFITS & GOOD WILL: CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Business is full of acronyms, but there is one in particular that is shaping the oil industry. CSR, stands for Corporate Social Responsibility, and its importance lies in its ability to respond to the world’s constantly growing demand for accountability.
EGAS’ NEW GAS REGULATORY AFFAIRS DIVISION
Eng. Amira El-Mazni has been named the new Vice Chairman for Gas Regulatory Affairs, but she has yet to be given her own office. In fact, her building doesn’t actually currently exist. Her temporary office is still on the fifth floor inside the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) building, as no laws have been formally been issued for the new group’s mandate. More troubling still, the laws are not expected to even be passed for at least six months, as the Ministry of Petroleum is still studying the draft law that would establish the Gas Regulatory Affairs (GRA) authority. UNLOCKING EGYPT’S ENERGY POTENTIAL
The industry often gets a glimpse of how the state views the it, its challenges and its future; however, rarely does the government present a completely unified outlook of how the industry is viewed and how it plans to deal with challenges in the future. During an event organized by the British Egyptian Business Association (BEBA) Sherif Ismail, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources presented the state’s view of the current challenges the industry faces, as well as the steps necessary to unlock Egypt’s energy potential.
