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Egypt to import oil from Iraq

February 3, 2017 at 4:50 pm

Egypt is negotiating a deal with Iraq that will see it import one million barrels of crude oil every month, after Saudi Arabia stopped its deliveries, Ahram Online reported yesterday.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an oil conference in Cairo yesterday, the CEO of the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), Tarek El-Hadidi, said that his country was negotiating to import one million barrels of Iraqi crude oil per month for a year, about one third of the monthly Iraqi crude oil production.

Read: Egypt and Saudi Arabia halt cooperation agreements

The chairman of the state-run oil company explained that the Iraqi imported oil will be refined in Egyptian refineries.

Iraq produces more than 3.6 barrels of oil per month.

In December, the Egyptian government said that the country was seeking an agreement to import one to two million barrels of oil each month directly from the Iraqi state.

On Tuesday, the Egyptian Minister of Petroleum, Tarek El-Molla, announced that an oil delegation will visit Iraq this month to finalise a crude oil import deal. The deal is expected to be finalised in the first quarter of 2017, according to the state news agency MENA.

The bilateral deal would help Egypt secure its petroleum needs after the country was informed in November by the national Saudi oil company Aramco that oil shipments expected under a prior multi-billion dollar aid deal had been halted indefinitely.

Also read: Egyptian contempt for Saudi as media calls King Salman a traitor

In April 2016, Riyadh agreed to finance Cairo’s petroleum needs for five years with a $22 billion soft loan and facilitated payments.

However, last October, Aramco stopped supplying Egypt with petroleum products following a political dispute between the two countries.