Egypt is preparing to launch an international bid round for oil and gas exploration in four areas of the Red Sea, through the Egypt Upstream Gateway (EUG).
The announcement was made during a meeting between Karim Badawi, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, and Andrea Lovatani, Director of Exploration Data and Digital Solutions at SLB, held on the sidelines of the World Energies Summit in London.
The meeting also addressed the regional seismic survey project in the Eastern Mediterranean, which Minister Badawi first announced in September during the GASTECH Exhibition and Conference in Milan, Italy. Covering an area of 95,000 square kilometres, the project aims to harness gas resources in the Eastern Mediterranean and attract further investment in Egypt’s gas exploration and production activities. The project has been awarded to a consortium comprising global energy technology company SLB and geophysical services provider Viridien, and will be implemented in three phases. The first phase, valued at $117 million, is scheduled to begin in 2026 and will cover an area of 18,000 square kilometres.
Badawi also met with Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies, to discuss new investment opportunities in oil and gas exploration. He highlighted the ongoing efforts to improve Egypt’s investment climate to attract more international capital. The meeting also addressed updates on the project to transport Cypriot gas from the Cronos field to Egypt, integrating it into Egypt’s infrastructure. Both TotalEnergies and Italy’s Eni are partners in the field.
The project was first announced in February during the opening of the Egypt Energy Show 2025 (EGYPES), where Egypt and Cyprus signed an agreement that involves the gas from Cronos Block 6 to be transported and processed at Egypt’s Zohr field facilities, then liquefied at the Damietta LNG plant for export to European markets.
In a separate meeting, Badawi sat with Chris Power, Director, Global Exploration Commercial and Portfolio at Chevron, and Channa Kurukulasuriy, Chevron’s Country Manager, in Egypt to review the finalization of procedures for awarding new gas exploration areas in the latest EGAS bid round through the EUG platform. They also discussed available investment opportunities in the Red Sea and Western Mediterranean
Power praised the fruitful cooperation between US Chevron and the Egyptian petroleum sector. He also commended the positive cooperation in the development of the Nargis gas field in the Mediterranean Sea.
The field, discovered in 2022, holds an estimated natural gas reserves of about 3.5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) and is operated by Chevron in partnership with IEOC (Eni’s subsidairy), and Egypt’s Tharwa Petroleum Company.
