Pyramid selling

With bids due to be opened this month on EGPC's second licensing round, Egypt is gearing for more E&P activity in 2005 as it seeks to shore up its rampant gas expansion. James Gavin reports

NECESSITY HAS proved the mother of invention in Egypt's oil and gas sector. Unlike neighbouring Libya, blessed with far more prodigious hydrocarbons resources, but on which it has, until now, failed to capitalise, Cairo—afflicted by a precipitous decline in oil output over the past 10 years—has worked hard to pull international oil company (IOC) investment into its gas base. The results have been highly successful. With the country's gas reserves increasing from 13.4 trillion cubic feet (cf) in 1990 to more than 62 trillion cf and two liquefied natural gas (LNG) export schemes about to come on stream, Egypt has transformed itself into one of the Mediterranean's key gas players. Egyptian Gene