In a press release to Egypt Oil&Gas, Egyptian Minister of Petroleum, Tarek El Molla, chaired the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) board meeting.

The minister discussed the main challenges facing the petroleum sector, including the the need to address increasing local consumption of petroleum derivatives and natural gas. This in turn has led to a boost in imports in order to cover demand needed to support the energy sector. Futhermor, EGPC is laded with difficulties in paying company dues and collecting outstanding balances from different consuming institutions.

In addition, Egypt encountered challenges in attracting new investments despite a decline in global oil prices. El Molla stressed that the Egyptian oil sector must maintain exploration agreements to encourage foreign investments and to improve refineries, as well as fuel transporting networks.

EGPC’s CEO, Tarek El Hadiedy, explained that the company’s 2015/2016 fiscal year result helped improve petroleum production and covering local demands via  24 crude oil discoveries and 14 natural gas discoveries. Thus, petroleum production reached an average of 671,000b/d of crude oil and condensates. Moreover, EGPC signed 8 oil and gas exploration contracts during the year, with $2.2b investments, in addition to 7 project agreements which increased the number of EGPC’s agreements in the last two years to 24 agreement.

EGPC partnered by 10% in South Iraqi concession number 9 and 15% in Siba gas field located in the South of Iraq. These partnerships represent the first time for EGPC to operate outside of Egypt.

EGPC paid a total of $16.2b and EGP 31.3b in dues to foreign investor for buying their production and loan facilitations. The company aims to inject new foreign investments worth $6.3b during fiscal year 2016/2017.