A senior official at the Ministry of Petroleum revealed that Gaz de France (GDF) and British Gas (BG) will sign a new gas deal covering Egyptian gas fields, this week. The agreement will connect approximately 100m cubic feet of gas per day to the West Delta Processing Plant which is owned by BG. In exclusive statements made to Al-Borsa, GDF said that it will add 100m cubic feet of gas per day to production from the West Borollos field by 2018. The official added that GDF will begin construction on a pipeline to connect the West Borollos field to the West Delta Processing Plant immediately upon signing the contract with BG. The official said that BG's production currently amounted to 1.1bn cubic feet of gas per day compared to 2.5bn in 2008. The decrease is due to a natural fall in production rates and a failure to connect wells to compensate for losses. He stressed that the main reason behind the decline in BG production is the government's lack of commitment to paying debts on time, where funds due to foreign partners currently amount to $1.5bn. The official added that foreign partners in the oil sector respond to the government's failure to repay debts on time by delaying linking natural gas production projects. This occurs despite the schedule agreed upon with the Ministry of Petroleum. He said that the $1.5bn repaid by the ministry last month to foreign partners was supposed to be repaid last June based on government agreements with the companies. Financial difficulties, however, prevented the payment from taking place.
