ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell said it will resume deep-water exploration for oil and gas off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, Executive Vice President Sami Iskander told a news conference on Tuesday.
Egypt is looking to production from recently discovered fields to halt energy imports by 2019.
A petroleum ministry official said last month that new production at Shell’s West Nile Delta field 9B is expected to reach 350-400 million cubic feet per day by 2019.
Separately, production from the first 3 wells in the field is set to begin in the 2018-2019 fiscal year.
The field is owned by Egypt’s General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), Malaysia’s Petronas and Shell.
(This version of the story has been refiled to fix dateline)
Reporting by Ahmed Ismail, writing by Amina Ismail; editing by Jason Neely
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