During his visit to China, Eng. Sameh Fahmi, Minister of Petroleum, declared that it was agreed upon, with the Chinese Chemical Engineering Corporation, the major Chinese company operating in the domains of oil, gas and petrochemicals, to establish a new project for producing Dimethyl Ether (DME). It is produced from gas and is used for mixing with LPG at a ratio of 20%, which leads to increasing LPG production domestically along with reducing its imports to meet the local market growing needs as well as benefiting from production cost reduction.
The production capacity of the project is about 220 thousand tons/ annually of DME, of which the Chinese Corp., the Canadian Methanix and the Egyptian Petrochemical Holding Co. share in.
The Minister also discussed with the Chairman of the Chinese Sinopec Co., the ways to increase its investments in Egypt, as the Chinese side requested to participate in oil and gas exploration activities at some of the offshore areas in Egypt.
In addition to reaching an agreement on establishing a new joint company that works in the field of deep water offshore drilling activities, that owns and operates offshore rigs.

(MOP)