Egypt has signed four agreements with international firms worth more than $340 million to explore gas and oil in the Mediterranean and Nile Delta, the Petroleum Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
They include a $120 million deal with Shell and a $100 million deal with Italy's Eni, the statement said.
Egypt seeks to boost gas production after increasingly turning to imports to meet domestic demand.
Egypt, once a regional exporter, is having to import some of its gas as its own production has fallen due to aging fields and lack of investment in new fields.
Egypt's gas production was 3,545 million cubic metres in May, down more than 40% from March 2021, according to the Joint Organisations Data Initiative (JODI) which measures oil and gas production.
On Friday, Egypt's petroleum ministry said that two new wells in the deepwater West Delta have gone online, adding about 60 million cubic feet per day (mcfd) of natural gas to the country's output.
The new output from the West Delta includes 50 mcfd from the Sapphire South Central DP well, the third drilled under phase 11 of the West Delta Deep Marine development with investment from Shell, and 10 mcfd from the Scarab D4 well, which was restored after years offline, the ministry said in a statement.
