The state-owned Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) has urged Saudi Aramco to provide Egypt with $300mn worth of petroleum shipments.
The shipments are part of the first contract to supply petroleum products worth $1.4bn for a period of three months ending in November.
A senior official at Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources told Daily News Egypt that authorities were in negotiations with their Saudi counterparts to renew the supply contract with Aramco with long-term payment facilitations, in addition to the provision of $300mn worth of shipments remaining from the first contract.
The official explained that the previous contract with the Saudi company included the provision of 500,000 tonnes of diesel, 220,000 tonnes of fuel oil, and 150,000 tonnes of gasoline a month.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Aramco signed a contract for facilitations of about $1.4bn for the supply of shipments of petroleum products over a period of three months starting last September. The value of the contract is to be paid one year later.
A high-level Saudi delegation is scheduled to visit Egypt to finalise the Saudi-Egyptian Coordination Council talks, and to discuss investment opportunities and aid to support Egypt’s state budget, through grants, petroleum aids, and deposits at the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE).
Saudi Arabia, the largest oil exporter in the world, along with the UAE and Kuwait have provided Egypt with billions of dollars worth of aid after the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi in July 2013.
Saudi Arabia had increased its raw production to 10.3mn barrels during the second half of this year, so as to enhance its share in the Asian market and nourish local power plants and refineries.
An EGPC report estimated the needs of the domestic market at 500,000 tonnes of diesel, 300,000 tonnes of butane, 150,000 tonnes of gasoline, and 500,000 tonnes of fuel oil per month.
The annual domestic consumption of gasoline in Egypt stands at 6.1m tonnes, of which gasoline 80 takes up nearly half (2.7m tonnes), followed by gasoline 92 (2.5m tonnes). Gasoline 95 accounts for about 400,000 tonnes, according to figures published in the 2014-15 budget.
