The foreign partners’ shares in the gas and oil fields have declined to nearly $650m monthly compared to $800m during the first quarter of this fiscal year. The value relies on the global prices of petroleum.
A source at the General Petroleum Corporation (GPC) told Daily News Egypt that the bill of the foreign partner in the production of oil and gas fields has declined as a result of the decline in oil prices in global markets to nearly $60 per barrel compared to an average of $75 during the first quarter of this fiscal year.
The source explained that the shares of the foreign partners divided into about $400m as the value of the gas produced monthly according to the prices stipulated in petroleum agreements, and about $250m monthly as the cost of buying the foreign partners’ shares in oil fields based on the global prices.
He expected that the continuation of petroleum prices declines in the global markets due to the increase of supply, which contributes to a decline in the monthly consumption bill of fuel.
The source added that the ministry of petroleum has managed to reduce about 15% of the costs of petroleum and gas consumption locally, which contributed to saving the expenditure of the companies involved with increased the production rates of petroleum and natural gas.
He said that the ministry has put forward a programme to reduce the production costs through increasing the reliance on local companies and products in the consultation and engineering works as well as the pipe lines and treatment plants.
He explained that reliance on foreign experts and engineers at production locations has decreased which saves large amounts of money.
He pointed out that the ministry has started implementing these steps since the start of last year, which helped some companies reduce expenses, as they have declined to nearly 20% in some of the companies.
Egypt exports 32-35% of its monthly needs of fuel to bridge the gap between local production and consumption.
The petroleum agreements signed by the government with Arab companies including Saudi Aramco, the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, and Iraqi SOMO.
The GPC has managed to increase the production rates of crude oil by 4.3% to reach 657,000 barrels per day currently, compared to 630,000 barrels per day last year.
