Egypt denies oil minister’s Tehran visit plans, says he’s in ADIPEC now

Egypt’s Oil Minister Tarek el-Molla has not visited and is not planning to visit Tehran to sign oil deals with Iran, oil ministry spokesman said Monday.

Hamdy Abdel Aziz denied media reports about el-Molla’s visit, saying the minister had headed to the UAE to take part in the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference (ADIPEC) 2016 conference, which takes place on November 7-10.

Back in April, Saudi Arabia had agreed to provide Egypt with 700,000 tons of fuel monthly for five years on easy repayment terms. Earlier this week, however, Saudi political activist, Mujtahid, revealed a halt to Saudi oil product shipments to Egypt.

Egyptian officials also announced earlier that Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil company had informed the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation in early October that it would halt the supply of refined oil products to Cairo.

A source in the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum said that government officials believe the suspension was “politically motivated” and estimate that it could last until the end of the year.