CAIRO – The Egyptian government announced a plan to drill 45 natural exploratory gas wells in the Mediterranean and the Nile Delta with $1.9 billion in investments until mid-2025, according to a Cabinet statement on Tuesday.

The plan includes drilling 10 wells between July 2022 and June 2023 which resulted in the huge discovery in the Nargis Offshore Area Concession, which added reserves of 2.5 trillion cubic feet, stated Tarek El-Molla Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources.

According to Ahram Online, El-Molla added that during the years 2023/2024 and 2024/2025, a total of 35 exploratory wells will be drilled with $1.5 billion in investments.

He said that there is another plan to drill 25 wells in the Zohr Field area to increase the field capacity, which reached 2.2 billion cubic meters per day.

In a similar vein, global energy giant British Petroleum (BP) is planning to invest $3.5 billion in the exploration and development of natural gas resources in Egypt over the next three years.

Egypt has been taking steps towards developing the energy sector to position itself as an energy hub. The country expects to produce about eight million tons of LNG in 2023 after discovering a new gas field in the Nargis area in January.

Egyptian LNG exports increased by 14 percent year-on-year to 7.5 million tons in 2022.