Saudi Aramco mulls higher oil channeled across Egypt’s SUMED for sale to Europe
Oil giant Saudi Aramco is considering pumping more Saudi oil to its customers in Europe through Egypt’s SUMED pipeline, an official in the Saudi firm said Monday.
This will make Egypt’s Sidi Kerir pipeline terminal on the Mediterranean coast a key regional hub for the sale of Saudi crude to Europe, Ibrahim Al-Buainain as chief executive of Aramco’s trading arm further said.
Al-Buainain made these remarks during a meeting with Egyptian Oil Minister Tarek el-Molla in Cairo on Monday.
He further referred to the possibility of making use of the excessive capacity at Egyptian refineries to refine Saudi crude, using storage capacity in Egypt to restore Saudi oil and distributing Aramco’s butane gas and petroleum products.
The Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) owns 50 per cent of SUMED that owns and operates Sidi Krir port on the Mediterranean coast. The remaining 50 per cent are owned by four Gulf countries: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, and Qatar.
The SUMED pipeline is 320 kilometers long and runs from the red sea to the Sidi Krir port, west of Alexandria, on the Mediterranean.
In April 2016, Saudi Arabia agreed to provide Egypt with 700,000 tonnes of refined oil products a month for five years, but the cargoes stopped arriving in early October until the Kingdom announced in March of this year that the shipments would resume soon.
