Egypt’s EGPC Signs for a Western Desert Seismic Survey of Up to 110,000 Square Kilometres
The Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation has signed an agreement for an expanded two-dimensional seismic survey of up to 110,000 square kilometres of Western Desert concessions in Matrouh and New Valley.
For Egypt’s upstream sector the prize is information: modern subsurface data over ground the ministry describes as thinly covered or dated, which it says should sharpen well targeting, lower investment risk and open new areas to explorers. The ministry puts the area at an estimated 11% of the country. In The Edge’s reading, the return will show in the blocks this data helps put before bidders, not in the signing itself.
Badawi witnesses a 2D survey agreement for Matrouh and New Valley
Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Karim Badawi witnessed the signing on Thursday 5 November, the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources said. Salah Abdel Karim, head of EGPC, signed for the corporation, and Sameh Saeed, regional director in Egypt for Ardiseis, the Saudi seismic contractor, signed for the company.
The 2D programme spans a number of concession areas and wide stretches of the two governorates. It targets areas that have not had sufficient seismic coverage before, or that need modern data, so that geological and geophysical assessment can reach further across the region.
EGPC’s stated aim is to update the seismic database for the Western Desert’s promising areas and improve knowledge of the structures below the surface. That should help identify the zones most likely to contain petroleum accumulations, and give a more accurate assessment of their potential, the release said.
The agreement falls under the exploration axis of the ministry’s five-year plan. That axis relies on new geological and seismic data to identify promising opportunities more precisely and to encourage investors to spend more on exploration.
No contract value, start date or completion date was published, and the release names no individual concessions.
Who signed and attended on 5 November
| Role | Name |
|---|---|
| Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, witness | Karim Badawi |
| Head of EGPC, signatory | Salah Abdel Karim |
| Contractor’s regional director in Egypt, signatory | Sameh Saeed |
| Saudi deputy ambassador to Egypt | Khalid Al-Shammari |
| Contractor’s executive director | Yahya Al-Shinqiti |
| Contractor’s vice president | Mohammed Al-Qahtani |
| EGPC deputy head for exploration | Ahmed Kamal El-Desouky |
Titles as given in the ministry’s Arabic release of 5 November; the contractor’s English name, Ardiseis, is as printed in a 2018 release in Viridien’s newsroom; English spellings of the other names are The Edge’s.
The Western Desert now has two large land seismic programmes
On 25 October the minister said a new survey was being prepared for the west of the Western Desert, near the Libyan border, over an estimated 110,000 square kilometres, as set out earlier. The 5 November agreement covers up to the same area.
The same release put surveys already under way in the south of the Western Desert, in West Assiut and Dakhla, at more than 100,000 square kilometres, also set out earlier. On the ministry’s figures, the Western Desert now has two land programmes, one of up to 110,000 square kilometres and one of more than 100,000.
Offshore, the ministry’s programmes are measured on smaller areas. The first phase of the East Mediterranean seabed survey, run by the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) with SLB and Viridien, covers an estimated 18,000 square kilometres inside a programme of up to 95,000, the ministry said.
At its full extent, the new Western Desert area would be 15.8% larger than that whole East Mediterranean ceiling and up to 106 times the 1,035 square kilometres of the Gulf of Suez seabed survey that the Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company (GUPCO) contracted with SLB. The areas are not a like-for-like measure of work: the ministry’s West Assiut and Dakhla 2D survey records 5,233 kilometres of lines across more than 100,000 square kilometres.
Seismic programmes named by the ministry since 18 October (in square kilometres)
| Programme | Area | Method |
|---|---|---|
| Matrouh and New Valley, EGPC | up to 110,000 | 2D |
| West Assiut and Dakhla | 100,000+ | 2D |
| East Mediterranean, EGAS | up to 95,000 | Marine |
| East Mediterranean phase 1 | 18,000 est. | OBN |
| Gulf of Suez, GUPCO | 1,035 | OBN |
OBN is seabed (ocean bottom node) technology. Areas as stated in the ministry’s releases of 5 November, 25 October and 18 October; the West Assiut and Dakhla method is from its 29 October 2025 release; “est.” marks the ministry’s approximations.
The tools differ by terrain: the offshore work uses seabed nodes, while the Western Desert agreement is a 2D land survey. The minister has framed them as one push, with seismic projects spanning the Mediterranean, the Gulf of Suez, the Western Desert and the south of Egypt.
The offshore record shows what new data can deliver
The Gulf of Suez offers a measure of what seismic data has done for drilling. GUPCO’s chairman said on 25 October that five exploration wells drilled on seabed data between 2022 and 2026 achieved an 80% success rate, as set out earlier. Before the data was used, from 2017 to 2022, the rate was an estimated 25%, he said. On his figures, four of the five wells succeeded.
That record comes from an offshore basin with a long production history and a different method, and the ministry has given no expected success rate for the Western Desert. Its own sequence for the Mediterranean work puts processing and interpretation first, after which the data is turned into defined opportunities offered to international companies.
The release ties the payoff to output. Wide seismic coverage should draw investment, intensify exploration and drilling, and support the state’s effort to raise domestic production and narrow the gap between production and consumption. The ministry’s wider use of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling was set out earlier.
The contractor’s West Assiut survey set the template
Badawi pointed to the contractor’s positive experience with recent seismic work in the West Assiut area. He said he looks forward to strong results from the new programme, feeding into more investment opportunities and higher local production rates.
The ministry has described that work before. On 29 October 2025 it said Ardiseis and Ganoub El Wadi Petroleum Holding Company had launched a 2D survey of West Assiut and Dakhla, recording 5,233 kilometres of lines over more than 100,000 square kilometres on a 12-month timetable. That matches the more than 100,000 square kilometres the minister gave for West Assiut and Dakhla on 25 October.
He also tied the signing to relations between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with oil and natural gas at the front of a widening cooperation. He praised the continued support of His Royal Highness Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the Saudi Minister of Energy, and the effect of his visit and his participation in the 2025 edition of Egypt’s international energy conference and exhibition on investment in Egypt’s oil and gas sector.
What to watch:
November 2026: GUPCO and SLB’s 1,035 square kilometre seabed survey in the Gulf of Suez is due to begin, the ministry said on 25 October.
End of 2026: phase 1 of the East Mediterranean survey is scheduled to run in the Denise area off Port Said and in Ras El Bar until the end of the year, the ministry said on 18 October, with survey work to follow during 2027.
Figures are from the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources’ release of 5 November 2026 on the Western Desert seismic agreement, with its releases of 25 October 2026 on the Gulf of Suez survey, 18 October 2026 on the East Mediterranean survey and 29 October 2025 on the West Assiut survey; the contractor’s English name is from a release of 8 February 2018 in Viridien’s newsroom; multiples, percentages and counts not attributed to a source are The Edge’s calculations.
Sources: Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Viridien, The Edge.
