Written by: Basant Al-Farmawy
Engineer Karim Badawy, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, held discussions with Son Ju-seok, Chairman of the Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC), on the sidelines of his participation in the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference "ADIPEC 2026". The meeting addressed strengthening the existing partnership between the two sides and increasing the corporation's investments in exploration, production, and research activities in Egypt, in addition to discussing new opportunities for cooperation in the fields of petroleum product storage and trading.
Strengthening Partnership and Increasing Production
Minister Badawy congratulated his Korean counterpart on assuming his new position, emphasizing Egypt's pride in the long-standing partnership with the Korea National Oil Corporation and its presence in the sector through Dana Petroleum and Petro Nefertiti companies. He affirmed the Ministry's aspiration to build upon the understandings reached during the May 2025 discussions and to push joint cooperation areas toward broader horizons during the upcoming period.
The discussions addressed ways to maximize the benefit from the corporation's current investment portfolio in Egypt, which includes four areas in the Gulf of Suez and the Western Desert, by intensifying drilling activities and applying the latest technologies in the field of enhanced recovery. This aims to support increasing production rates and improving the efficiency of utilizing available reserves and resources in existing fields, in line with the Ministry's strategy to increase local production and reduce the import bill.
New Investment Opportunities and Strategic Storage
The Minister invited the Korea National Oil Corporation and Dana Petroleum to study the available investment opportunities within the 2026 global bidding round, as well as promising opportunities in areas close to production zones and existing infrastructure, enabling rapid development of discoveries and reducing investment costs.
In a new axis of cooperation, the two sides discussed benefiting from the advanced expertise possessed by the Korean corporation in forming and managing strategic petroleum reserves, to study opportunities for establishing joint projects in storing and trading petroleum products and enhancing supply security, in light of the infrastructure and capabilities Egypt possesses that qualify it to expand in petroleum product trade and trading activities and enhance its role as a regional energy hub.
Training and Digital Transformation
The two sides also discussed activating training and capacity-building programs previously addressed during the 2025 discussions, in addition to expanding cooperation areas in artificial intelligence applications and digital solutions in operational processes, contributing to raising performance efficiency, improving operations management, and maximizing resource utilization—areas that receive interest and priority from the corporation's new leadership.
Technical Meeting to Develop Practical Frameworks
The two sides agreed to hold a technical meeting with the participation of representatives from the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) and the Dana Petroleum and Petro Nefertiti companies, to develop practical frameworks for increasing production from the companies' operational areas in Egypt, and to discuss the training and capacity-building programs targeted for activation during the year 2027.
