EGPC to build $9 billion Refinery & PetroChemcicals Complex

Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) will spend $9 billion over the next five years to build an oil refinery and petrochemical complex on the country's north coast, Sameh Fahmy Egypt's oil minister announced today.

The refinery will have a capacity of 350,000 barrels per day (bpd), will begin operation by 2010 and will be located either in Port Said or Gamasa on the northern coast.

Egyptian oil production, which was expected to rise by 30,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 735,000 bpd between May and end of July, has actually declined from a peak levels of close to one million bpd in the mid-1990s. The country's reserves of crude oil and condensates rose 221 million barrels to 4.189 billion barrels in the 2007/08 fiscal year which ended on June 30.

Egyptian private equity firm Citadel Capital is in the process of building a $2.4 billion oil refinery to be finished in four years. Libya has also said it would build an oil refinery on Egypt's north coast as part of a planned $10 billion of investments project.