Egypt’s petroleum sector grows for first time in more than two years

Egypt’s petroleum sector recorded positive growth of 0.7% in the third quarter of the 2025/26 fiscal year, its first expansion since the first quarter of 2023/24, the Cabinet said.

During a cabinet meeting on June 24, 2026, Minister of Planning and Economic Development Ahmed Rostom said the sector’s growth was driven by higher domestic production of crude oil, natural gas condensates, and butane liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) during the first three months of 2026.

The growth comes about two weeks after Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Karim Badawi announced that the government had finished repaying arrears owed to foreign companies operating in petroleum extraction in Egypt, after the overdue payments had previously reached $6 billion.

The government is banking on the move to encourage companies operating in Egypt to resume extraction activity after it slowed in recent years because of the arrears.

According to a previous count by Al Manassa, the Ministry of Petroleum announced 24 new oil and gas discoveries between 2023 and 2026. But the largest share of these discoveries, 67%, was in crude oil, while gas discoveries remained the smallest category.

At the macroeconomic level, the planning minister said gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 5% in the third quarter of the current fiscal year, compared with 4.8% in the same period last year, indicating a relative improvement in productive sectors as regional conditions began to stabilize.