Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Karim Badawi, Shell Egypt’s Vice President and Country Chair Dalia El Gabry, and Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) Chairman Alaa El Batal have signed an agreement between EGPC, Shell and Malaysia’s Petronas to pump additional investments into the West Delta deep offshore region to implement the tenth phase to increase production rates and reserves that can be extracted from natural gas.

This comes with a total investment of $222 million, and a commitment to drill three wells to produce natural gas and establish marine facilities to put those wells on the production map.

Work is currently underway to drill the three wells to put them on the production map at a rate ranging between 150 to 200 million cubic feet before the end of this year.

Before the signing, Badawi and El Gabry held a meeting during which they discussed the various projects implemented by Shell Egypt, as well as the company’s current and future plans and coordination to face the challenges.

Shell has a diversified investment portfolio in Egypt through which it has worked to increase the volume of its activities at an accelerated pace over the past two years as a major partner for the petroleum sector in developing oil and gas resources through exploration, drilling, and production work, in addition to the liquefied natural gas complex in the Idku area.

During the meeting, Badawi affirmed the commitment of the government and the petroleum sector to work intensively with Shell to make the partnership a success and to support ambitious businesses and plans to increase production rates of natural gas from the Mediterranean.

The minister pointed out that the government is aware of all the challenges and is working to overcome them with partners, emphasizing the importance of Shell as a major partner in the petroleum sector in Egypt and one of the most important players in the energy industry in Egypt.

Badawi praised the diversification of its investments in the gas and petroleum industry to include various activities and its keenness to carry out community initiatives that serve the local communities surrounding its areas of operation.

Meanwhile, El Gabry explained the current progress in the program for implementing the West Delta Deep Gas Production Projects (WDDM) in its tenth and eleventh phases, and the new agreements to pump investments in the two phases.

El Gabry stated that Shell is committed to Egypt and that there are large and promising opportunities in Egypt that the company is working to invest in through major exploration and production projects. She also stressed the importance of strengthening joint coordination between the petroleum sector and Shell to confront challenges in a way that contributes to investing in opportunities for growth and production.