Egyptian oil and gas taxes were estimated to increase in the new budget of fiscal year 2017/2018 by 37.7% from the EGP 32.09b allocated in 2016/2017 to reach EGP 44.17b, an official at the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) told Egyptian Media.

The tax will increase due to the hike of global petroleum taxes and due to the growing international oil companies (IOCs’) business during 2016/2017. The tax will also be affected by the increase of the USD exchange rate. The source pointed out that EGPC and IOCs pay taxes based on the amounts of crude oil and natural gas.

Previously, the Egyptian Ministry of Finance had amended the taxes in the 2016/2017 budget to be EGP 32.09b after it was originally allocated at EGP 21.418b at the beginning of the fiscal year. The Ministry had decided on the increase after the decision taken by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) to float the Egyptian pound.