Italian power company Edison plans to sell a 25% stake in the Abu Qir field in Egypt by early next year, company boss Umberto Quadrino told reporters.

“We aim for the end of this year or early next year … We hope to sell it at a profit,” Reuters quoted him as saying on the sidelines of a forum.

Quadrino had said in January that Edison might sell a 25% stake in the field and that a 10% stake could be sold “in the near future”.

He has also said French utility EDF was among parties that might be interested and last December said a decision should be made in the first quarter of this year.

Edison agreed to buy the Abu Qir field in 2008 for $1.405 billion. It has reserves of about 70 billion cubic metres of gas equivalent of which Edison is entitled to about 40%.

Quadrino also said today that he was satisfied with Edison’s first-half results.

(Upstream Online)