President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Karim Badawi to review efforts to increase oil and natural gas production, according to Presidential Spokesperson Mohamed El-Shennawy. The discussions focused on adopting hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling technologies to enhance output.

Badawi said the petroleum sector is accelerating the use of these technologies to access resources that are difficult to extract using conventional methods, helping increase crude oil and natural gas output.

During the meeting, El-Sisi stressed the importance of localizing advanced technologies and ensuring their economic implementation in cooperation with major service companies and production partners.

Badawi also reaffirmed the sector’s commitment to gradually settling overdue payments to foreign partners while maintaining regular monthly payments.

The President emphasized that maintaining timely payments to international oil companies is key to encouraging further exploration and production and highlighted the need to advance exploration and development activities to meet domestic demand and reduce imports.

 Madbouly announced in Janaury that Egypt has cleared approximately $5 billion in arrears due to its foreign partners in the petroleum sector. The country’s total arrears for international oil companies (IOCs) have dropped from a mid-2024 peak of $6.1 billion.

The debt is expected to reach $1.2 billion by the end of June 2026, which Madbouly noted is the standard commercial rate. This reduction aligns with the government’s efforts to enhance the investment climate and encourage foreign partners to increase exploration and production activities.