Senior executives from Azerbaijan’s state oil firm SOCAR met with Egyptian officials to discuss establishing a strategic partnership in the oil and gas sector. Egyptian Petroleum Minister Karim Badawi hosted Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Egypt, Elkhan Polukhov, and SOCAR’s Director of Business Development, Zaur Hasanov, along with Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation CEO Salah Abdel Karim.
The discussions come as Egypt launches a new oil and gas bid round, inviting international companies to bid for 13 offshore and onshore blocks. The licensing round includes six new exploration areas and seven undeveloped discoveries as part of Egypt’s strategy to attract more upstream investments.
Foreign firms have shown increasing interest in Egypt since Italy’s Eni discovered the huge Zohr gas field offshore Egypt in the 2010s, the largest natural gas discovery in the Mediterranean to date. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s SOCAR recently joined a consortium with BP and Israeli company NewMed Energy to explore for natural gas offshore Israel.
Source: Oilprice.com
