Preparations are underway for two oil refining and petrochemical projects worth $3 billion to be carried out in Egypt with joint Kuwaiti and Bahraini investments, said Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum Sameh Fahmy.
The two huge enterprises will be set up in the Egyptian city of Suez, about 130 km east of Cairo, on the southern tip of the Suez Canal.
The capacity of the oil refinery, whose investments hit $1.8 billion, will reach 100,000 barrels a day in the first stage, to rise to 150,000 barrels in the next, Fahmy added in a statement.
The second project, with a capacity of 130,000 barrels daily and investments worth $1.2 billion, will provide petrochemical and oil products.
Meanwhile, Fahmy said his ministry was implementing a program for expanding the use of natural gas as a vehicle fuel for its "environment advantages" in a bid to reduce consumption of other fuels and in tandem make the best use of the country’s growing gas reserves.
"Egypt is now among the world’s top countries using natural gas as an auto fuel," he said, adding that up to 80,000 cars had been converted to the use of natural gas. The service is rendered by six companies and 112 stations.

(Kuwait News Agency)