The Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) plans to increase the capacity of national refineries to exceed 42 million tons per year starting 2019, a source at EGPC told Amwal Al Ghad.

Developing the existing refineries, including the Middle East Oil Refinery (MIDOR), and starting the operations at the Egyptian Refining Company (ERC) will directly contribute to boosting the country’s refining capacity, the source said.

Investments in the expansion of refineries will exceed $8 billion, the source pointed out, adding that the expanded projects will start operations successively starting from 2019 as per the time-frame set by the Ministry of Petroleum.

Egyptian refineries currently secure over 70% of local market’s demands of petroleum products.