UK-based oil and gas company British Petroleum (BP) plans to invest $10bn in gas production in Egypt over the next 4 to 5 years, a cabinet statement said Tuesday. BP said that it will restart a gas project in north Alexandria, halted since 2011 due to instability, and is scheduled to start production in 2017. After starting production, the Alexandria project will provide 25% of the domestic market's gas needs. The remark was made during a Tuesday meeting between Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb, an executive director of BP and Minister of Petroleum Sherif Ismail. In previous statements in June, Ismail pointed out that BP's north Alexandria concession would produce 450m cubic feet per day in initial production. The output would almost double to 800m cubic feet per day by 2018. Ismail added that Egypt would pay $1.5bn of the money it owed to foreign energy companies by the end of 2014. The total amount of oil debts has increased to $6bn in May, according to Khaled Abdel Badie, president of the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS). Earlier in May, BP said that it planned to invest $1.5bn in Egypt during the second half of 2014 in order to increase its production.
