Egypt clears $1.2bn in dues to foreign oil companies

Egypt has reportedly paid $1.2 billion this month to foreign oil companies to settle part of its overdue debts.

Total arrears to foreign oil companies operating in oil and gas exploration and extraction has reached $7.5 billion, up from $6.3 billion at the beginning of April, an unnamed government official told Asharq Business, an Arabic financial website.

Egypt is making the payments to help boost natural gas production, which has fallen to 4.2 billion cubic feet per day.

Domestic production is insufficient to meet the daily requirements of 6.2 billion cubic feet, which is set to rise to 7 billion in the summer.

Nearly 60 percent of the latest payments went to three companies: Italy’s Eni, the UK’s BP and US company Apache.

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The government has asked these companies to increase their exploration and drilling efforts, the report said.

Eni will invest around $26 billion in Algeria, Libya and Egypt over the next four years to help boost energy production, CEO Claudio Descalzi said last month.

In March, Egypt invited international companies to bid to develop 13 new oil and gas sites in the Mediterranean Sea, the Gulf of Suez and the western desert as the country seeks to reverse a fall in natural gas production.