Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly has toured the natural gas production facilities in the West Delta Deep Marine (WDDM) area in Beheira Governorate, reaffirming the government’s commitment to attracting new investments into the oil and gas sector and signalling a new chapter in Egypt’s partnership with international energy companies.
Madbouly was accompanied by Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Karim Badawi and executives from the foreign companies operating in the area, including UK-based Shell, Malaysia’s Petronas, and Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (KUFPEC). The WDDM area is operated by Rashid Petroleum Company (Rashpetco), a joint venture between the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), Shell, and Petronas.
“Our goal is to attract more investments into this vital sector and encourage global partners to inject new capital into exploration and development activities,” Madbouly told the assembled executives.
Badawi described the WDDM area as one of Egypt’s most important natural gas-producing regions in the Mediterranean and highlighted it as a successful model of cooperation between the Egyptian petroleum sector and international partners. He noted that the government’s outstanding dues to foreign partners — a long-standing concern for international investors — were fully cleared on 10 June 2026, a move that has helped restore investor confidence and accelerate development plans.
The minister said the 10th and 11th phases of the WDDM development project were implemented in 2024 and 2025, adding new production capacity that supported domestic gas supplies and helped mitigate natural decline from mature fields. He also highlighted Egypt’s competitive advantage from its integrated gas production and processing infrastructure, which reduces development costs and enables rapid tie-in of new discoveries.
The West Mina gas field, one of the area’s most significant offshore discoveries, is scheduled to begin production in the fourth quarter of 2026, targeting output of 160 million cubic feet per day once tie-in operations to existing facilities are completed. The field was discovered in October 2023 and is being developed by Shell and KUFPEC through a subsea tie-back to WDDM infrastructure.
During the visit, Shell Egypt Vice President Dalia El Gabry outlined the company’s more than 110 years of operations in Egypt spanning natural gas production in the WDDM, exploration in the Nile Delta and Herodotus Basin, and gas liquefaction and exports through the Idku LNG plant. Petronas Egypt CEO Hany Esmat expressed interest in expanding the Malaysian company’s investments in Egypt’s gas sector, while KUFPEC Country Manager Abdulaziz Al-Mousawi highlighted the company’s participation in the development of the West Mina field.
Source: egyptoil-gas.com