Eng. Sameh Fahmi, Minister of Petroleum held a joint talks session, on 3/8/2010, with Mr. Steven Farris, Apache's Chairman & CEO as well as the accompanying delegation.
Apache's Chairman stated that  the Western Desert  region acquires substantial interest after realizing many discoveries and that their investments this year reached $1 billion and the company's plan targets spending  more than $1 billion over the coming  year so that ,  total investments during their operation period in Egypt reaches about $8 billion.

He pointed out that, the company's acquisition of BP's shares in the Western Desert, for about $650 million, is an important step that contributes to increasing the company's oil & gas production from such promising region.  Adding that, Apache's production were doubled over the past five years through Khalda and Qarun Petroleum companies to reach 362 thousand b/d and with the first phase completion of Khalda Petroleum Company fields' development project in the western area, last May, daily production was increased from 105 thousand b/d to 125 thousand b/d.   Moreover,  it is planned to increase production to reach 140 thousand b/d,  after completing  the second phase of field development, next September, in addition to natural gas production  expansion, from 750 million cubic feet to 950 million cubic feet, and added that studies are underway to enhance the available infrastructure  capacity of the region along with constructing  two pipelines and a fifth gas processing  station in the Western Desert  to meet  the projected increase in the region  production.
 For his part, the Minister of Petroleum stressed that  the U.S. company 's acquisition   of BP's  shares in the Western Desert will contribute to the rapid development of new discoveries as well as pumping  additional investment,  infrastructure development in the region, attracting  more international investments along with increasing oil and gas production & reserves of this region promising.