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Transglobe Energy reported a 9% increase in Egyptian output in April compared to Q1 2021; output averaged 11,009 b/d during the month, up from 10,238 b/d in January-March. In Q1 results announced on 7 May, the Canadian company said it realised an average price of $53.31/bbl on its Egyptian sales.

Abu Dhabi-based International Holding Company is investing Dh20m ($5.4m) in a scheme in the Wadi Al-Natroun region of northern Egypt to develop solar PV-powered irrigation to increase fruit and vegetable production for export.

The launch of a project to bring renewable power generated in the southern part of Morocco directly to the UK is one of five high-voltage direct current (HVDC) interconnections now planned between North Africa and Europe. Alongside the Moroccan Xlinks project, similar schemes in Tunisia and Egypt are united by the common conceptual approach of enabling European countries to replace the 60% of primary energy now imported as fossil fuels. However, the underlying political and commercial motivations, as well as the technological details, differ in each case.

What’s not to like for investors in President Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s Egypt? The government’s International Monetary Fund-supported reform programme has greatly improved macroeconomic conditions; Egypt was a rare economy that reported some growth in Covid-plagued 2020, despite a huge downturn in tourism and other key revenue-earners. Its commitment to accelerating infrastructure development has sucked funds into global-scale solar and wind power programmes.

Egypt is ready to supply Sudan with as much electric power as it needs, according to minister of electricity and renewable energy Mohamed Shaker. Speaking on 21 March, he said the country had the available capacity and was ready to increase export capacity from 80MW to 300MW.

As well as the three western Mediterranean blocks offered by Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (Egas), its part of the round includes six eastern Mediterranean blocks, including northern parts of the North West Satis, North West Atoll, West Zohr and West el-Arish offshore blocks, part of the Shorouk block relinquished by Eni after the Zohr development, and parts of Edison’s unsuccessful North Port Fouad and North Thekah Offshore blocks.

Egypt’s latest licensing round includes three unexplored western Mediterranean blocks which represent the future for the country’s natural gas sector. Their fate is tied closely to Egypt’s wider domestic and regional energy strategy, which despite an energetic campaign of modernisation and renewal is still overshadowed by the mistakes of the first gas export drive in the late 1990s, writes John Hamilton.

Cairn Energy and its local partner Cheiron Holdings have acquired a potential counter-cyclical bargain with their $646m acquisition of Shell’s Western Desert assets. The eight production concessions are operated via the Bapetco joint venture with Egypt General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC). There are also five exploration blocks, which will be operated by Cairn itself. Shell is understood to have wanted $1bn for the concessions when it first put them on the market in October 2019, although they were valued by consultancy Wood Mackenzie at $775m.

The Ministry of Petroleum has launched a new upstream licensing round including 24 on- and offshore blocks. As part of an innovation which has been under development for the past four years, data on the blocks including an archive of sub-surface information will be made available via the Egypt Upstream Gateway (EUG), a digital platform developed in partnership with oil services company Schlumberger.

The lifting of the first LNG cargo in nine years from the Damietta liquefaction plant on 22 February took place a day after Cairo and Tel Aviv agreed to work on a governmental agreement to link Israel’s offshore Leviathan gas field with Egypt’s two export facilities via an under-sea pipeline.

Following several block awards announced in early January, minister of petroleum and mineral resources Tarek El-Molla has signed a concession agreement with Royal Dutch Shell, Mubadala Petroleum and Tharwa Petroleum for Red Sea Block 4. The 3,084km2 block in the northern Red Sea owned by the South Valley Egyptian Petroleum Holding Company (Ganope) was offered in a licensing round in 2019.

London-listed Energean announced on 21 January that it had taken a final investment decision on the North El Amriya and North Idku (NEA/NI) concession subsea tieback project offshore Egypt. The NEA concession contains two discovered and appraised gas fields, Yazzi and Python, while the NI concession contains four discovered gas fields, one of which is ready for development. NEA/NI is due to deliver first gas in H2 2022 from 49m boe of 2P reserves, 87% of which is gas. Peak production is expected to be approximately 90mcf/d, plus 1,000 b/d of condensates.

Delays to the implementation of subsidy reform caused by economic stresses related to the coronavirus pandemic mean that the planned re-establishment of Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC)as a fully independent entity has been put back by three years. Local media reports say the government has postponed EETC’s formal separation from Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC) from 2022 to 2025.

A year after initial awards were first announced, minister of petroleum and mineral resources Tarek El-Molla has signed oil and gas exploration agreements with six major IOCs and their Egyptian partner Tharwa Petroleum. Seven of the agreements involving Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (Egas) are for offshore areas in the Mediterranean, while two are with South Valley Egyptian Petroleum Holding Company (Ganope) covering areas in the Red Sea. The ministry has said it expects to sign three more agreements soon.

Dubai-based AMEA Power announced on 16 December that it has signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) with Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) for a 500MW wind project in the Gulf of Suez and a 500MW solar PV scheme in Aswan governorate. The PPAs were initially signed for 500MW of wind and 200MW of solar in December 2019, but the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy increased the size of the solar project to 500MW.