Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Karim Badawi announced that the Egyptian state has achieved an unprecedented strategic milestone by completely clearing all overdue payments owed to investment partners in oil and gas production, reducing the balance to zero for the first time in years after it had reached approximately $6.1 billion in June 2024.
The minister said that this achievement marks a major turning point for Egypt’s petroleum and gas sector, opening a new chapter characterized by confidence, investment, growth, and increased production. He noted that this goal was achieved thanks to the support and continuous follow-up of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi as well as coordinated efforts within the government under the leadership of Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly and full cooperation among all relevant entities.
Badawi explained that resolving the issue of overdue payments is not merely a financial settlement but a fundamental solution to one of the most significant challenges facing the sector in recent years. The accumulation of arrears had directly affected investment levels and drilling, exploration, and development programs, which in turn impacted domestic oil and gas production.
He noted that the full payment of these dues has significantly restored investor confidence in Egypt’s petroleum sector and removed one of the biggest obstacles to the inflow of capital and new investments. This paves the way for a more active phase of exploration, field development, and accelerated implementation of production projects.
He added that Egypt possesses exceptional advantages that make it one of the region’s most important energy investment destinations, including its strategic geographic location, advanced infrastructure, integrated production and export facilities, substantial technical and human expertise, and promising opportunities in the oil, gas, and energy sectors.
Badawi pointed out that recent months have witnessed a strong resurgence in investment momentum, with partners resuming drilling, exploration, and development programs at an accelerated pace. This has already resulted in increased petroleum activity and higher investment levels across various concession areas.
He explained that developing offshore fields—particularly in the deep waters of the Mediterranean Sea—represents a highly complex technical and investment challenge due to the advanced technologies, substantial capital investments, deep-water drilling operations, and extensive gas transportation networks required to connect fields to production facilities and processing plants.
Such projects typically require years of intensive work before entering the production phase. The minister affirmed that the petroleum sector’s strategy is focused on accelerating the development of discoveries and bringing them into production as quickly as possible, maximizing the utilization of Egypt’s natural resources, and adding new production capacity to support the Egyptian economy and meet domestic demand for oil and gas.