Egypt to halve oil firms’ dues in weeks: Oil Minister

CAIRO- 29 March 2017: Egypt expects to slash oil companies’ arrears by around half in the coming week, Reuters quoted Egyptian Oil Minister Tarek el-Molla as saying Wednesday.

Egypt owes around $3.5 billion to international oil and gas companies, and the government adopted a plan to schedule the debt repayment with the aim of encouraging these firms to boost their exploration and production activities in Egypt.

“We have made a lot of progress on paying off arrears," Molla said at an oil and gas conference held in Italy. He added that Cairon may finalize a deal to import crude oil directly from Iraq within a month at the most.

The minister stated that Egypt will likely be self-sufficient in oil and gas by the end of 2018.