Cabinet greenlights a state company to build Sadat City’s dry port

The Cabinet approved a state-owned project company to build and run a dry port and a logistics zone in Sadat City under the Holding Company for Maritime and Land Transport, according to a Cabinet statement. The special purpose vehicle (SPV) will develop, operate, and manage the terminal on land allocated by the General Authority for Land and Dry Ports in Menoufia, and its mandate allows it to bring in private logistics operators to run parts of the site. No investment figure, capacity, or timeline was disclosed.

IN CONTEXT- Sadat City has been on the Transport Ministry’s radar since it began pitching dry ports to investors, and the network it belongs to now runs to 33 ports and logistics zones along seven corridors. Only two are operating: Sixth of October and El Amreya, which opened this month. Private builds are moving too: Sky Ports is developing Borg El Arab, and Medlog’s USD 130 mn Tenth of Ramadan hub is due in 2027.

Rigging up

Italian contractor Saipem and state-owned Modern Drilling Company (MDC) signed a non-exclusive MoU to look for offshore drilling prospects, starting in Egypt, with a joint committee picking the structure project by project (joint venture, consortium, or a project-specific agreement), according to a statement. No value, tender, or timeline was attached, and any extension beyond Egypt is left to both sides to agree.

IN CONTEXT- The state owns most of the driller. Egas holds 83% of MDC and Tharwa 17%, and MDC’s offshore muscle is thin next to a 70-rig fleet that is almost entirely onshore: three jack-ups, Bahari 1, and the two El Qaher rigs. But it proved it can drill deep anyway. El Qaher 2 drilled the Denise W-1 well off Port Said, which the ministry reported as a discovery of about 2 tcf of gas and 130 mn barrels of condensate. The acreage that will need that equipment is already on the table. The 2026 bid round closes 11 November for six EGPC blocks in the Gulf of Suez, Sinai, and the Western Desert and 14 December for eight Egas blocks in the Mediterranean, the Nile Delta, and North Sinai, part of a push for 160 new wells this fiscal year.

Water on the table

Egypt and the UK inked an MoU establishing a bilateral Green Growth partnership, following discussions at the Cairo Water Week, according to a statement from the Water Resources Ministry. The framework covers clean energy transition, industrial decarbonization, carbon market stimulation, water and food security, and mobilizing private green finance. The talks also covered trilateral cooperation between Egypt, the UK, and Nile Basin states, combining Egyptian experience in African water projects with British expertise and financing.

IN CONTEXT- UK support for Egypt’s green transition stands at more than USD 240 mn in grants, investments, and technical assistance, and Egypt holds British International Investment’s (BII) largest investment portfolio in Africa and its largest climate portfolio globally, according to the British Embassy statement (pdf). Over half of BII’s Egypt book in the previous strategy period went to climate finance, including over USD 300 mn committed in 2025 to the 1.1 GW Gulf of Suez wind farm and Scatec’s 1.1 GW Obelisk solar plant with 200 MWh of storage. BII is also one of 10 development finance institutions interested in the USD 520 mn Infrastructure Financing Guarantee Facility.

More on our radar

• QNB Egypt opened the branch we flagged on El Amreya’s opening day, offering trade finance, letters of credit, and guarantees to the importers, logistics firms, and customs brokers operating inside Alexandria’s first dry port. (Statement, pdf)