The Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Tarek El Molla, confirmed the ministry’s interest in developing and increasing the capacity for petroleum projects in upper Egypt especially for the Assiut refinery, which witnessed the implementation of a high-octane production complex with a capacity 800,000 tons of octane with investments worth $450 million,  a press release reported.

El Molla asserted the importance of the axial role of the Egyptian refineries in the sustainable market settlement in terms of the availability of the petroleum products and securing fuel supplies.

This came during the general assemblies of companies; Assiut Oil Refining Company (ASORC), Amreya Petroleum Refining Company (APRC), and Alexandria Petroleum Company to approve their planning budgets of fiscal year (FY) 2020/2021, headed by the minister.

The Chairman of APRC, Ali Badr, said that his company targets pumping investments of EGP 680 million in the planning budget of FY 2020/2021.

He said that these investments will include replacing and updating the equipment and infrastructure to increase the designing capacity by 30% in addition to establishing health, safety, and environment (HSE) programs.

Moreover, the company aims at refining 3.9 million tons of crude and producing 89,600 ton of butane, 350,600 tons of naphtha, 1.3 million tons of middle distillates, 142,500 tons of airplane fuel, in addition to asphalt and waxes.

The Chairman of ASORC, Moahmoud El Shaboury, said that his company aims at refining 4.4 million tons of crude oil to produce 61,600 tons of butane, 546,600 tons of naphtha, 1.3 million tons of benzene, 952,000 tons of diesel, 2.4 million tons of mazut in addition to 197,400 of airplane fuel.

Additionally, the Chairman of Alexandria Petroleum Company, Medhat Bahgat, said that his company targets investments worth EGP 3 billion in developing the efficiency of the energy projects as well as raising the efficiency and updating the industrial security system.

He added that the company is targeting to refine 4.9 million tons of crude oil and produce 85,000 tons of butane, 1.3 million tons of naphtha, 485,000 tons of turbines, 1.2 million tons of diesel, 1.2 million tons of mazut in addition to using 591,000 of mazut to produce oils.

Medhat noted that the company will witness in FY 2020/21 the start of two new projects one dedicated for processing diesel by hydrogen and the other for an air distillation unit.