Africa Oil & Gas: Egypt to Clear Oil Debt by 2019

Egypt’s Petroleum Minister Tarek El Molla while speaking to Egyptian state-owned media said that the Ministry was on schedule to pay off its oil debts to foreign companies by mid-2019.

“It is hard to determine a specific date, but we imagine that if the current rate of payment continues we will be able to reach zero external debt within two years,” El Molla told al-Jazeera.

This falls in line with a previous pledge of the government’s to clear the debts by the end of June 2019. The pledge is part of Egypt’s efforts to attract foreign investors after recently discovering new gas reserves.