The Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Tarek El Molla, announced that the new 12 petroleum agreements  which were approved by the cabinet , are worth a minimum of $1 billion in addition to a $19 million signature bonus for drilling 21 wells, according to a press release.

He added that these agreements are conducted with a group of international companies including Chevron, Edison, BP, Total, Shell, Nobel, Kufpec, and Mubadala, noting that eight of the agreements were signed with the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) and three with Ganoub El Wadi Petroleum Holding Company (Ganope) , in addition to another one with the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC).

The Egyptian cabinet approved the 12 exploration and production (E&P) bills related to the oil and gas sector on June 11.

El Molla mentioned that his ministry signed 84 petroleum agreements during the past six years with international oil companies(IOCs) with investments of not less than $15 billion and more than $1 billion signature bonus for drilling 351 wells.