While chairing the general assembly of the General Petroleum Company (GPC), Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El Molla confirmed that GPC holds an advanced position when it comes to the production of oil and gas within the Egyptian petroleum industry after it ranked third in production rates, with up to 68,300 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d), which also represents the highest rate in the company’s history.

El-Molla stressed that the ministry, in the coming period, will continue to increase investments and assign new concession areas to the company to create greater opportunities for it to expand and increase production of crude oil and natural gas, especially in light of its important role as a state-owned company whose entire production returns to the state.

El Molla also referred to the positive development in safety indicators in the areas of work of the GPC, as this came as a result of implementing measures to modernize the safety system in accordance with the ministry’s strategy. He also pointed to the importance of the environmental projects that were implemented to treat industrial wastewater in the company’s fields.

During the meeting, Nabil Abdul-Sadiq, President of the GPC, reviewed the most important results of the work achieved during the year, pointing to the company’s success in achieving the highest average production since its establishment, amounting to about 68,300 boe/d from its concession areas. He pointed out that the production of natural gas and condensates witnessed a boom compared to previous years and that the success rate of the new exploratory well drilling plan reached 100% at an unprecedented rate after drilling five successful exploratory wells in the company’s concession areas.

With regard to the projects implemented by the company to develop production facilities and fields, Abdul-Sadiq explained that the company has completed the operation of the gas transmission line to exploit the production of the Northwest Bahar field in the Eastern Desert, which was placed on the production map at rates of about 15 million cubic feet of gas, in addition to operating another line to connect the gas wells NES-19 and HF-36/5 with initial production rates of 40 million cubic feet of gas and 1000 barrels of condensates per day.

With regard to environmental projects, he explained that the GPC established an industrial wastewater treatment plant in the eastern desert fields with a capacity of 5,000 cubic meters per day, at a cost of about EGP 500 million, within the framework of the company’s commitment to environmental responsibility.