CAIRO, Sept 16, 2018 – President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has directed the government to expedited action to ensure optimised and ideal utilisation of the country's petroleum resources and wealth. The presidential directives to this effect came at a meeting that President Sisi called on Sunday with Prime Minister Dr Moustafa Madbouli and Petroleum and Mineral Wealth Minister Tarek el-Mulla, the Presidency Spokesman, Ambassador Bassam Radi said. In particular, the president directed the government to accelerate the completion of petroleum refining projects so as to narrow the gap between the import and consumption of petroleum products and achieving the availability of such products from local refineries, spokesman Radi said. The presidential directives also called for the addition of new petroleum refining projects and production units in a number of governorates, especially including Alexandria, Assiut and Suez. President Sisi also stressed the importance of adopting the most up-to-date scientific approaches to the development of the petroleum sector with all its components and that the human resources be the focus of the development process through raising the efficiency of workers in this sector, advancing their skills and applying a modern system for the management of human resources. In the course of the meeting, President Sisi's directives called for commitment to the preset timetable for the development of the Zohr natural gas field in order to achieve its maximum production capacity which has now reached 2 billion cubic feet per day, Ambassador Radi said, adding that the Petroleum Ministry and affiliate bodies were directed to remove any hurdles that may hamper the field's development.
