RWE Dea Signs for the Extension of Gulf of Suez Concessions

07-20-2007

RWE Dea Suez GmbH and EGPC, the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum, signed agreements allowing for the extension of the Gulf of Suez Offshore and the North Belayim Offshore Concessions by a further ten years.

RWE Dea Suez GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Hamburg based RWE Dea AG, has already produced 590 million barrels of crude from these two concessions via its operating company SUCO. In total 3.2 billion US dollars have been spent during the last thirty years. The signature of these extensions secures further capital investment in the producing fields in Zeit Bay, Ras Fanar and Ras Budran.

Through the agreement amendments, RWE Dea will now have the right to market the associated gas production from the Zeit Bay field in Gulf of Suez Offshore Concession. Currently, most of the associated gas produced is reinjected for reservoir pressure maintenance, but there is some gas available for sale. With growing production out of the gas cap this amount is yet to be increased in the future. Facilities of the joint venture are already available for handling such sales gas, so the majority of future investments are aimed on new wells and production optimisation activities.

The signature was the final step of an ongoing negotiation process aiming to create further value for both RWE Dea and EGPC in these two concessions, which originally were signed 33 years ago. The concession extension is considered an important move towards the realisation of RWE Dea’s strategic goal to strengthen its position as an operator in the Egypt/North Africa region.