A press release to Egypt Oil&Gas stated that Egyptian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Tarek El Molla, chaired the general assembly of Middle East Oil Refinery (MIDOR).

In the event, El Molla assured that the Ministry’s plan to develop refineries is an important part of Egypt’s efforts to flourish the economy as the new projects contribute in covering the local market’s fuel demands. The measure helps the country to decrease petroleum imports, which eases the foreign currency burden.

El Molla further added that refineries expansion will help reach Egypt’s vision to become a regional hub for oil and gas trade.

The minister also disclosed that the oil and gas sector recently executed two new projects to increase the capacities of refineries through increasing MIDOR’s capacity by 15%.

Moreover, the Ministry established a production unit in Asyut refinery in order to produce butane and naphtha to be used in high-octane benzene output.

Additionally, El Molla urged the continuation of the second phase of expansions at MIDOR with investments around $1.9b to increase production capacity by 60%.

Meanwhile, MIDOR’s CEO, Mohamed Abdel Aziz, reviewed the results of 2016 as the refinery was able to process 33.3m barrels of petroleum. Hence, the company was able to contribute to the market by around 3m tons of petroleum derivatives with investments reaching $1.2b.

The company sold 1.7m tons of diesel, 152,000 tons of butane, 879,000 tons of high-octane benzene, and 136,000 tons of naphtha to the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC).

MIDOR also secured 353,000 tons of coal, 50,000 tons of petroleum coal and 83,000 tons of sulfur to industrial and commercial companies.