The Egyptian Parliament's energy committee approved an agreement for oil and gas exploration in the North Sinai maritime concession area (NOOR) in the Mediterranean Sea. The deal is between the Italian company Eni and the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS). MP ElSayed Hegazy, a member of parliament's energy committee, told Daily News Egypt that the committee approved last week the agreement after its presentation to a plenary session of parliament, under which the development of oil and gas reserves in the concession area in the Mediterranean will take place. Hegazy pointed to the importance of the agreement in intensifying the drilling programmes for development and exploration wells in the concession areas and quickly put them on the production map and work to take advantage of all the potential oil resources available in the sector to achieve self-sufficiency of oil and gas during the coming years. The agreement includes spending $105m to drill wells in shallow waters where depths range from 200-350 metres. The research is expected to last about six years in two phases. Egypt's current natural gas production is about 5.7bn cubic feet per day, instead of 5.5bn cubic feet in 2018. The Ministry of Petroleum announced the launch of two international bids, for EGAS and the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), during 2018 for the exploration of oil and gas in 27 sectors covering most of Egypt's basins. The EGPC's bid for oil exploration includes 11 sectors, including five sectors in Western Sahara, two sectors in the Nile Valley, three sectors in the Gulf of Sue,z and one sector in the Eastern Desert. The EGAS bid for gas and crude oil included 16 sectors, with 13 sectors in the Mediterranean and three sectors in the Nile Delta.
