The Ministry of Petroleum on Tuesday promised to allow British Gas Group (BG), to export liquefied gas via the infrastructure of the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Petroleum Operations (ADCO), Energy Egypt reports.

This is coming after BG a subsidiary of Shell, told the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) that works will restart on the 9B phase of the Burullus field if it was permitted to export 100 to 150 cf/d and boost the price of gas.

The overall output of the Burullus and Rosetta gas fields is valued at 700 million cf/d of gas. The fields produced 850m cubic feet in 2015.

The company had stopped operations and removed its oil drill from the field in February as a result of the government’s inability to pay its money.

The ministry said the payment of its arrears to BG is subject to the Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) decision to assign the necessary funds.

The ministry stated that the price of gas will not go beyond the $5.88 per million thermal units adding that the company loses 20 million cubic feet of gas out of its scheduled production due to the unavailability of compensatory wells and the fall in the rate will persist till the end of 2017.

Anita Fatunji