"Good… all is good," was all former petroleum minister Sherif Ismail would say to Daily News Egypt, following the announcement that he has now been assigned as Egypt's new Prime Minister. President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi appointed Ismail as a Prime Minister on Saturday. Before that, Ismail had been serving as minister of petroleum and mineral resources since July 2013. As minister, he worked on various files during his tenure. He played a major role in partially resolving Egypt's energy crisis, and began the importation of liquefied natural gas (LNG) through the Ain Sokhna Port, which contributed to reducing the power shortage Egypt has been facing every summer. Ismail succeeded, under difficult economic circumstances, to repay $3.6bn of overdue balances to foreign partners in the oil sector. Those balances were accumulating over the period from 2009 until 2013. By the end of August, overdue balances fell to about $2.9bn. Ismail succeeded in convincing foreign partners to increase their investments in Egypt through signing 56 new agreements to undertake search and excavation programmes for oil and gas, with investments worth $13bn. In addition, there are 15 petroleum agreements that are currently being finalised. He further took advantage of the political relations between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE and received payment facilitations for the value of shipments of petroleum products to ease the financial burden on the state and pay them in interest-free instalments. Ismail has encouraged Arab countries to engage in oil projects in Egypt, and not only through providing economical support. Further, in Russia, he took advantage of the political rapprochement between the two states and signed 35 agreements for LNG shipments with Russian Gazprom, through which he was able to get a good price. Ismail was the head of Ganoub El Wadi Petroleum Holding Company (GANOPE) from 2007 to 2013, before heading the Ministry of Petroleum. He graduated from the Faculty of Engineering – Mechanical Department in Ain Shams University in 1978. He began work as an engineer in the research and exploration department at Mobil Company until 1979. Between 1979 and 2000, Ismail was an engineer at Enppi. He was promoted several times and finally became the Director General of Technical Affairs and a member of the Board of Directors. He served as undersecretary at the Ministry of Petroleum, assigned to follow the affairs of the oil and gas operations from 2000 to 2005. He was then appointed chairman of the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) until 2007.
