The Minister of Petroleum, Tarek El-Molla, held meetings on Wednesday with several oil and gas executives including Total's CEO, Patrick Boyan, and Axens's CEO, Jean Sentenac, to discuss increasing their investment in Egypt, during his visit to Paris to participate in the Mediterranean Gas Conference, organised by the Observatoire Méditerranéen de l'Energie (OME), in cooperation with the European Union. During El-Molla's meeting with Boyan, he stressed that the increasing demand from international companies to inject further investments in the Egyptian oil and gas sector, especially in unexploited areas, reflects the success of the reform and development efforts in providing an attractive investment environment. On the other hand, Boyan expressed the company's aspiration to increase the company's activities in Egypt, explore in new areas in the western Mediterranean and the Red Seas, increase its investments in the development of gasoline stations as well as increasing infrastructure for the transport, storage, and distribution of products. "The opportunities in the field of natural gas in Egypt are the most attractive in the world, and they reflect the increasing investor confidence in the Egyptian economy," Boyan added. During his meeting Jean Sentenac, chairman and CEO of Axens, El-Molla emphasised the keenness of ministry to boost cooperation between the two sides to benefit from the expertise of the French company in the field oil refining and petrochemical processing technologies. The meeting also reviewed the cooperation between the two sides in the project of the hydrogen cracking complex of Mazut in Assiut governorate for the production of gasoline, diesel, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). The French company is carrying out the licenses and engineering designs for the project. Sentenac stressed the interest of his company in expanding its activities in Egypt in the current period.
