Petroleum ministry: $1.850B investments in Assiut national company

CAIRO - 10 July 2018: Petroleum Minister Tareq el Molla said Assiut national company for oil manufacturing will construct a complex for hydrogen cracking of heavy fuel oil "Mazut" at Assiut Oil Refining Co. (ASORC), with total investments amounting to 1.850 billion dollars.

In a statement on Tuesday, the minister said that the newly-established company's founding assembly agreed on appointing its first board to manage and construct the Assiut Hydrocracking Complex (AHC).

The complex will produce 2.25 million tons of mazut annually, he added.

It will produce 1.6 million tons of EU-wide supply of low sulphur fuel "Euro 5 diesel" and 402,000 tons of Naphtha (a flammable oil containing various hydrocarbons, obtained by the dry distillation of organic substances such as coal, shale or petroleum), he said.

It will also produce 101,000 tons of butane, in addition to quantities of coal and sulphur, the minister said.

Within the framework of Egypt's plan to become mazut-free by 2021, the government plans to perform hydrogen cracking on mazut to add value to the product base