In September 2025, Karim Badawi, Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum, took the unusual step of visiting the London headquarters of bp, along with state company with EGAS to sign a Memorandum of Understanding, to drill five wells in the Mediterranean.
Less than a month later, on October 13, 2025, bp announced the award of a rig contract to Valaris for the DS-12 deep water drillship rig to drill five wells offshore Egypt, in water depths ranging from 300 to 1,500 metres.
Drilling operations are expected to commence in 2026, with the programme aiming to accelerate the development and production of gas reserves while utilizing existing production facilities in the company’s operational heartlands of West Nile Delta.
bp reports that it has made 10 exploration discoveries across its global portfolio in the first half of 2025, with two of those discoveries in Egypt. The Fayoum-5 gas discovery well and the El King-2 exploration well, both part of the West Nile Delta basin.
The British major plans to increase production to 2.3-2.5Million barrels of oil equivalent a day in 2030 with the capacity to increase production out to 2035.
The rig contract signing ceremony took place at the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources and was attended by Karim Badawi, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources and Mahmoud Abdel Hamid, Chairman of the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company.
