Kuwait, Egypt sign oil supply deal – 2 million barrels of crude per month
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CAIRO, Nov 15, (Agencies): Egypt’s state news agency says Kuwait has agreed to supply Egypt with 2 million barrels of crude per month, starting in January.
Tuesday’s announcement comes more than a month after Saudi Arabia halted previously agreed fuel shipments to Egypt as differences over the conflicts in Syria and Yemen strained ties between the two nations.
The Saudi move has ratcheted up pressure on Egypt as it tries to revive a battered economy and overcome a shortage of dollars. Cairo floated its currency this month and significantly hiked fuel prices.
The MENA news agency says that under the deal with Kuwait, Egypt will get the crude at international prices with no discounts, but with a nine-month grace period.
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MARRAKESH, Morocco: The World Bank will provide the second $1 billion tranche of its $3 billion budget support to Egypt by early January, the bank’s vice president Hafez Ghanem said on Tuesday.
Egypt has been negotiating billions of dollars in aid from various lenders to help revive an economy battered by political upheaval since the 2011 revolt and to ease a dollar shortage that has crippled import activity and hampered recovery.
“We are planning to go to our board of directors either by late in December or early in January, so we are talking of a matter of weeks,” Ghanem told Reuters in the Moroccan tourist city of Marrakesh where he was attending the U.N. climate change conference (COP22).
The World Bank provided the first $1 billion to Egypt earlier in 2016. After the second $1 billion by January, the third chunk is expected to follow later in 2017.
In another boost for the Cairo government, the International Monetary Fund’s executive board last week approved a three-year, $12 billion loan aimed at supporting Egypt’s economic reforms, and the central bank said it had received a first tranche of $2.75 billion.
But the government is facing growing discontent over austerity measures required by its international lenders.
Last Friday calls for protests failed to take place, but they have gained traction on social media after Egypt raised fuel prices and floated its currency.
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