Foreign partners in the petroleum sector aim to increase investments to about $11bn by the end of this fiscal year (FY) in the petroleum, exploration, developing, and operating fields, compared to $10bn in the last FY. A source at the petroleum sector told Daily News Egypt that this FY is witnessing the implementation of three major projects, which are the second phase of Zohr field, the North Alexandria project, and the 9B phase in Borollos fields. He explained that the foreign partners in the petroleum sector have increased the investments planned for this FY, in order to speed up implementing the gas projects agreed upon with the petroleum ministry. The source pointed out that the ministry managed to reduce the recent debts to foreign partners, after paying $5.1bn the end of last FY out of the total debt, estimated to be $6.3bn in 2012. The source explained that the lowest level these debts reached was $1.350bn on 30 June 2010. The debt is likely to be entirely paid by the end of 2019. The ministry is working on reducing its debts to the foreign partners, in parallel with repaying about $650m as monthly dues to buy the partner's shares in local production, as stated by the source. Moreover, he clarified that the initiatives to repay and reduce the dues had a positive impact on foreign petroleum companies' investments in Egypt. Furthermore, he stated that there are intensive efforts made by the ministry to increase production through following modern methods and technologies to reduce the natural decrease in wells. The petroleum sector is currently implementing plans to increase petroleum wealth production. He added that there are efforts currently made in cooperation with foreign partners to implement projects, in order to undertake major gas explorations in the deep waters of the Mediterranean and Nile Delta, in order to increase production to 8bn cubic feet daily by 2021. The source finally stated that Egypt has attractive investment opportunities in the petroleum sector, and there are promising opportunities in the petroleum production sector.
