Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El Molla said that Egypt’s success in attracting petroleum investments and increasing investment in research and exploration were driven by several factors, foremost of which is the political stability witnessed by Egypt and the continuous support of the state to the oil sector, which is full of distinct experts and various oil and gas potentials.
El Molla chaired the general assembly of Qarun Petroleum Company and Khalda Petroleum Company to adopt their results for the 2016/2017 fiscal year. The assembly was attended by a number of the ministry’s deputies and the executive chairman of the Egyptian Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) as well as the chairman of Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS), and David Chi, Vice-President of Apache Corporation and General Manager for Apache Egypt Companies.
During the meeting, El Molla said that Apache projects in Egypt are a model for serious foreign investments that have achieved positive results in terms of increasing production and developing the petroleum industry, especially through its two companies, Qarun and Khalda, as a major player in the production of crude oil in Egypt, and achieved many successes with the oil sector in Western desert.
The minister stressed the importance of full commitment to implement the program of the Ministry of Petroleum to accelerate the development of oil and gas fields discovered, and link them to the map of production, with attention to increase and raise the efficiency of occupational safety and health programs, and follow the instructions and requirements in all production sites.
Khlada Petroleum’s CEO, Khaled Mowafy, said that the results achieved by the company represent an investment of $502m and resulted from achieving the total capacity of 105% by producing 107 million barrel equivalent, next to adding 56 million equivalent barrel to the reserves, including 34 million barrels of crude oil, six million barrels of condensates, and 83 billion cubic feet of natural gas.
He noted that the company has also implemented the plan to rationalize and reduce operating costs, which contributed strongly to cutting on total costs, adding that the company dug 56 wells, including 13 exploratory wells, of which seven wells have contained evidence of oil, marking a success rate of 54%.
Qarun Petroleum’s CEO, Mohsen El Nouby, also reviewed the company’s business report, noting that the total expenditure reached $137m. He added that the company saved $17m of the budget across all operations, while digging 14 new wells.
He pointed out that the company managed to add 1,900 barrels per day to its production, after digging the new development wells, hence, raising daily production to 35,500 new barrels per day. The total production per annum registered 13 million equivalent barrels, next to adding 7.6 million barrels of crude oil to the reserves.
