Saudi Aramco resumes Egypt oil deliveries: Ministry

CAIRO - Agence France-Presse

REUTERS photo

Egypt has received its first two oil shipments from Saudi giant Aramco after deliveries were suspended for several months over political differences, an oil ministry spokesman said on March 19.

“On Friday and Saturday, we received the first two deliveries after a resumption of the contract with Aramco,” oil ministry spokesman Hamdi Abdel Aziz told AFP.

“We will receive another two deliveries on March 26 and 27.”   

During a visit to Cairo by King Salman in April last year, Saudi Arabia agreed to finance Egyptian imports of refined products from Aramco for five years in a $23-billion (21.5-billion-euro) deal.

But in October 2016, Aramco decided to suspend deliveries of 700,000 tons of petroleum products a month during a spat between the two countries over the conflict in Syria.

At the time, Aramco was cited as saying the suspension was due to “special commercial conditions amid fluctuations in international oil prices.”

But the move came after Egypt voted in favor of a Russian-drafted UN Security Council resolution on Syria that Saudi Arabia strongly opposed.