Egypt Clears $6 Billion in Energy Debt and Opens Door to a New Gas Boom

The announcement from Egypt’s petroleum and mineral resources minister Karim Badawi that the country has paid all its outstanding debts to foreign oil firms is as welcome to international oil companies and their governments as it is to the country itself.

Egypt has become one of the West’s prime targets in the hunt for replacement gas supplies after the loss of Russian flows following the 24 February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Officially, it holds around 93 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven natural gas reserves, but unofficially, it…