Hydrocarbon licensing rounds in Egypt

The right to explore and produce oil and gas in Egypt, according to the law firm Freshfields, is awarded by the Ministry of Petroleum under the form of a concession agreement entered into by the successful bidding company and the Egyptian government, represented by the Ministry of Petroleum and Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), or Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS), as applicable.

Egypt has held several licensing rounds in recent years. A list of bid rounds and the licenses awarded in each is available on the website of consulting group Deloitte. The most recent bid round, launched by EGAS in June 2012 for exploration blocks in the Mediterranean Sea and Nile Delta basins of Egypt, led to eight blocks being provisionally awarded by EGAS, collectively amounting to 26,400 sqkm. Amongst the announced winners (Petroceltic, Edison, BP, Dana Gas, Sea Dragon and IEOC) was Pura Vida Energy, an Australian-based oil exploration company which has not operated in Egypt prior to these awards.

Ganoub El-Wadi Holding Company (GANOPE) has held almost-yearly international bid rounds for acreage in Upper Egypt since 2003, with the most recent round taking place in June 2013. The bid rounds over the years have led to 16 active concession agreements and five additional concession agreements under ratification as of mid 2013. GANOPE jointly supervises seven EGPC concession agreements, bringing the total number of concession agreements under GANOPE's watch to 28.

In April 2013, Oil Minister Osama Kamel announced that Egypt will adopt a new licensing policy for its future oil and gas exploration contracts signed with foreign companies that will allow the country to obtain a bigger share of the production. The new system will allow Egypt to increase its share of the output when production rises. However, the new policy won't be implemented on the eight oil and gas exploration projects in the Mediterranean Sea that Egypt awarded in April 2013.

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