Egyptian Minister of Petroleum Tarek El Molla has confirmed that Egypt is working on a new model for production and sharing agreements between the government and international oil companies, Reuters reported.

The new model will see oil firms covering the exploration and production costs and receiving shares of the production in return, officials told Bloomberg in mid-October.

The companies would then have the freedom to sell their production share to a buyer of their choice, the officials explained.

“So far the feedback that we received from different partners is very positive and they are enthusiastic to participate in the bid round on this basis,” El Molla said during a meeting with a US business delegation.

“It will be all together and one figure that includes cost recovery and the profit share of the partner, so we don’t go towards what we call cost recovery audits, which sometimes take effort, [create] arguments between different departments and… for new frontier areas, it wouldn’t be encouraging,” the minister explained.