Author: Rigs & Barge World

UK Energy giant bp reaffirmed its commitment to boosting investments in Egypt, accelerating drilling programs, and turning discoveries into actual production on an accelerated pace. This came during a meeting of Karim Badawi, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, with Nader Zaki, Regional President of bp for the Middle East and North Africa and Wail Shaheen bp’s Regional Vice President in Egypt, to review the status of bp’s projects and the company’s investment plans for the next phase. Zaki reaffirmed BP’s commitment to its historic partnership with Egypt’s petroleum sector, noting that the ministry’s efforts to improve the investment climate…

US oil major Chevron is in discussions with the Trump administration to broaden a key authorization that would allow the company to increase crude oil exports from Venezuela, including shipments to its own refineries and potentially to third-party buyers, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The talks coincide with negotiations between Washington and Caracas to supply up to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil to the United States. US officials stated that revenues from these shipments would be managed by a US-supervised trustee, with funds earmarked for purchasing American goods for Venezuela. This mechanism is intended to…

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has reached a final investment decision (FID) for the SARB Deep Gas development, a strategic offshore project within the Ghasha Concession aimed at expanding the UAE’s natural gas production capacity. FID is the point at which a company formally approves a project to move ahead with full development, committing capital after completing technical, commercial, and regulatory evaluations. The project is expected to supply approximately 200 million standard cubic feet of natural gas per day (mmscf/d) by 2030, which is sufficient to meet the daily energy requirements of over 300,000 homes. Located 120 kilometers offshore…

Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Karim Badawi met with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides to review the latest developments in the natural gas interconnection projects between the two nations to bolster regional energy security, according to a statement by the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources (MoPMR). In February, Egypt and Cyprus signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to transport gas from the Cypriot Cronos field, which holds 3.1 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of proven gas reserves, to be processed at Egypt’s Zohr field facilities, then liquefied at the Damietta LNG plant for export to European markets. Italy’s Eni, which operates Zohr,…

Libya’s NOC says output of crude and condensate averaged 1.374mn b/d for 2025, celebrating a rebound after a turbulent decade and a half for the country’s lifeline oil and gas sector (MEES, 20 December 2024). While MEES estimates for monthly figures in late-2025 show a slight drop from January’s 1.4mn b/d (MEES, 3 January 2025), the highest since May 2013, the average annual output for 2025 remains the highest in 15 years. But the failure to match January’s level since then shows how difficult it will be to push ahead to new heights for 2026. (CONTINUED – 746 WORDS) Read…

Despite discovering gas fourteen years ago Cyprus has yet to produce a single molecule, and plans to gasify the island through the import of LNG could yet be binned. New Energy Minister Michael Damianos finds an in-tray brimming with pending energy projects, including the development of the 3.5tcf Aphrodite and 3.1tcf Cronos fields as well as the Great Sea Interconnector (GSI) project, which like the planned LNG import terminal is under EU investigation (MEES, 12 September 2025). The new minister began his tenure in early December (MEES, 19 December 2025), and soon after paid a visit to Israel on 22…

Egypt plans to drill 101 exploration wells this year though, as is usually the case with Cairo’s grandiose announcements, details and context are thin. This is broadly in line with 2025, when around 100 wells were drilled. This is the first year of a major $5.7bn exploration campaign through which Egypt plans to drill some 480 exploration wells over the next five years, Petroleum Minister Karim Badawi announced in October. (CONTINUED – 1637 WORDS) Read this article for free Gain access to over 60-years of energy analysis and news Delve into the details backed by data Exclusive information from high-level…

Dana Gas, the Middle East’s largest private sector natural gas company, has received a $50 million payment from the Egyptian government, reducing overdue receivables, according to a press release issued by the company on January 5, 2026. This payment supports the company’s ongoing drilling program under the consolidation agreement signed with Egypt in December 2024. It optimized fiscal terms and designated additional acreage for exploration to incentivize new upstream investment in the Nile Delta and Mediterranean regions. Since the program commenced, Dana Gas has drilled four wells that added approximately 18 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) of production…

Operating companies in the Gulf of Suez region held a workshop at the Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company (GUPCO) headquarters to discuss strategies for improving performance and reducing well drilling costs. The initiative aligns with the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources’ (MoPMR) strategy and directives from Karim Badawi, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources. During a recent inspection of the Belayim offshore 133 well in the Gulf of Suez, the minister emphasized the necessity of enhancing drilling efficiency and lowering expenditures, according to a statement by MoPMR. Salah Abdel Kerim, CEO of the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), highlighted…

Opec+ is entering 2026 with the ‘Group of Eight’ holding production quotas steady for Q1. A decision on output policy for April is likely to be made in March. The parallels with the two previous years are clear, with the Group of Eight having entered both 2024 and 2025 with deep voluntary cuts in place for Q1. The question for oil markets is whether this year will be like 2024, when the cuts were ultimately extended by a full year, or more like 2025 when the Group of Eight defied expectations by accelerating the unwinding of 2mn b/d of voluntary…