Egypt to negotiate with Saudi Arabia over new oil cargoes – official

Egyptian petroleum ministry is set to start new negotiations with Saudi Arabia at the middle of March 2016 over getting additional oil cargoes during the second quarter of 2016.

An official in the ministry told Amwal Al Ghad Wednesday that it is not currently receiving any oil cargoes from UAE as the commercial deal have ended since awhile. Accordingly, the government has decided to negotiate with Saudi Arabia to meet all sectors’ needs of oil during the first quarter of 2016.

He noted that Egypt is currently receiving amounts of oil from Saudi Arabia estimated 800,000 tonnes for three months, i.e. February, March and April 2016, with the cost of US$500 million and payment facilities for one year.

Egypt is to start paying for those cargoes after a year of getting the first one, i.e. February 2017.

In December 2015, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman  ordered the kingdom to help meet Egypt’s petroleum needs for the next five years in addition to injecting investments of more than 30 billion Saudi riyals ($8 billion).

The official pointed out that Egypt is working on boosting its local production of petroleum products by encouraging foreign oil firms that work in Egypt to drill new wells through paying their late dues.