A press release to Egypt Oil&Gas stated that the Minister of Petroleum, Tarek El Molla, attended general assemblies for Misr Petroleum Company, Co-operation Petroleum Company (COOP), and Petroleum Pipelines Company (PPC) to review the companies’ general budgets for fiscal year 2017/2018.

El Molla pointed out that the ministry plans to develop the oil and gas marketing and distribution systems to secure local market’s needs. It is important to adapt new technologies to control the transmission and distribution of petroleum products. This control should be implemented through installing metering mechanisms in warehouses and the automatic tank gauging (ATG) in filling stations, as well as using global positioning system (GPS) to track and trace transportation vehicles.

Misr Petroleum’s CEO, Mohamed Shaaban, stated that the company plans to rationalize costs without affecting production. The company’s total sales reached 5.2m tons of petroleum products during the first half of FY2016/2017. The company intends to produce around 10.8m tons during 2017/2018.

Meanwhile, COOP’s CEO, Samir Rizk, said that the company sold 5.8m tons of petroleum products during the first half of 2016/2017 which was 18% more than planned. It also sold 48m tons of oils which was 14% more than planned. He added that the new budget prioritizes developing warehouses and constructing new filling stations, as well as supporting transportation vehicles. This came as COOP’s cost rationalization planned to save 25% of costs during the first half of 2016/2017.

Moreover, PPC’s CEO, Abdel Meneam Hafez, pointed to the company’s plans to invest EGP 1.4b during fiscal year 2017/2018, in order to expand Egypt’s national distribution for petroleum. The plan includes raising the efficiency of pipelines as well as renewing and replacing pipelines including those at Beni Suef-Asiut and Suez-Mostorod. PPC plans to construct a new pipeline from Tebbin to South-Helwan, to support South-Helwan electricity station.