Egypt is working to settle all its outstanding dues to international partners in the oil and gas sector by the end of June, according to Karim Badawi, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources.
Badawi pointed out that the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources (MoPMR) has been working to gradually reduce the dues from about $6.1 billion on 30 June 2024 to $1.3 billion currently, with the necessary coordination in place to fully settle them by 30 June 2026.
This comes in implementation of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s directives to accelerate the settlement of partners’ dues, thereby strengthening confidence and encouraging the investment needed to increase domestic oil and gas production, and consequently reduce the import bill, noted a MoPMR statement.
The Minister explained that since the second half of 2024, the ministry has paid great attention to implementing investment incentive measures that contributed to reducing accumulated dues while maintaining regular monthly payments. It has also worked in an integrated manner with several ministries and state institutions, foremost among them the Central Bank of Egypt and the Ministry of Finance.
Such measures have contained and halted the decline in production caused by slowed investments since the Fiscal Year (FY) 2021/2022 due to delayed payments amid economic challenges, said Badawi. He clarified that these steps have positively reflected on reactivating investments in exploration and field development.
He stressed that restoring confidence with International Oil Companies (IOC)s has encouraged them to expand their planned activities over the next five years. The ministry has also adopted a five-year plan in cooperation with its partners to increase discoveries and production.
He pointed to the investment commitments given by several international partners: Italy’s energy giant Eni, which announced an investment plan of about $8 billion, the UK’s BP with $5 billion and the UAE’s Arcius Energy with $2 billion. This is in addition to Shell strengthening its investments in gas exploration and production in the Mediterranean, and Apache expanding its investments in gas and crude oil production in the Western Desert and increasing its exploration areas in Egypt last year, with total investments exceeding $4 billion.
In January, Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly said that Egypt has settled $5 billion in arrears to foreign oil partners, expecting dues to reach $1.2 billion by the end of June 2026.
