Egyptian Oil Minister, Tarek El Molla, said that Saudi Arabia’s Aramco has informed Egypt that shipments of oil products expected under a $23b deal would be halted indefinitely, Reuters reported.

Aramco had agreed earlier 2016 to provide Egypt with 700,000t/m of refined oil products for five years. Yet, in October the Saudi oil giant informed the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) that it would halt supplies of refined oil products, forcing Egypt to resort to tenders to meet domestic demand. It was not clear at the time if the freeze was only for October, accordingly to Bloomberg. El Molla confirmed the indefinite suspension of Saudi fuel supplies during a conference in Abu Dhabi.

State-owned EGPC has agreed to buy eight gasoil cargoes for November delivery to Alexandria, at an average price of about $12/t over regional benchmarks. Egypt has also signed a memorandum of understanding to import crude oil from the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (Socar) to supply its refineries.