The Minister of Petroleum of Egypt and Eni sign a strategic agreement for new upstream and downstream initiatives

Wednesday, Jul 28, 2010

The agreement reinforces the cooperation between Eni, the Ministry of Petroleum and the two Egyptian state oil and gas companies EGPC and EGAS.

San Donato Milanese (MI), 27 July 2010 - Egypt's Minister of Petroleum, Amin Sameh Samir Fahmy, and Eni CEO, Paolo Scaroni, today signed a Strategic Framework Agreement for the development of joint initiatives in the fields of exploration, production and transportation of hydrocarbons. 

The agreement reinforces the cooperation between Eni, the Ministry of Petroleum and the two Egyptian state oil and gas companies EGPC and EGAS. This co-operation started in 1954 and since then Eni has become the largest foreign operator in the Egyptian Oil & Gas sector.

The Strategic Framework Agreement, which follows the signing of a Cooperation Initiative on 12 May 2009, defines the initiatives to be jointly pursued:

• Initiatives in the Mediterranean Basin through a joint venture between Eni and the Egyptian national companies EGPC and/or EGAS. The agreement provides for the mutual exchange of information among the parties and joint studies to pursue common projects.
• The participation of EGPC and/or EGAS in Eni upstream oil and gas activities outside Egypt, including development of oil fields in Iraq and Gabon.
• An initiative sponsored by the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum which seeks to secure rights for Eni to acquire gas transportation capacity in the Arab Gas Pipeline system in accordance with the intergovernmental measures already present among the countries involved with the pipeline. The Arab Gas Pipeline is a gas transport system through which Egypt presently exports gas to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon and which may be expanded and interconnected to other gas transport systems in the future. The parties also envisage flexibility to use this system for physical gas swaps and transportation of purchased gas to and from Egypt.

The above mentioned initiatives will form the foundation for developing a pre-eminent Mediterranean gas hub in Egypt.

Eni is the largest foreign energy player in Egypt. The company's equity oil and natural gas production averaged approximately 230,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2009. Eni operates in Egypt through its wholly owned subsidiary, the International Egyptian Oil Company (IEOC), which directly carries out exploration activities and participates in joint venture partnerships and joint venture companies.

Source:ENI