BP’s four-well Egypt program straddles its pending USD 1 bn sale to Energean

BP is spending USD 700 mn drilling wells on both sides of a sale it hasn’t closed. One of the four is in a field Energean is lined up to buy; two go to the joint venture BP is keeping with Abu Dhabi’s XRG. Most of today’s other money is long-dated: CIB’s textile loan runs seven years, XRG’s Azeri gas FID doesn’t produce until 2029, and Nawy has rebuilt its retail property business inside a fund that can live 20 years instead of five.

BP’s four-well Egypt program straddles a sale it hasn’t closed. The USD 700 mn program proceeds while BP negotiates the sale of roughly USD 1 bn of local assets to Energean. EVP Gordon Birrell walked Oil Minister Karim Badawi through it on Thursday, the ministry said in a statement.

On the selling side: Fayoum-4 is already producing in the West Nile Delta two years early, at c. 80 mmcf / d. The package Energean is eyeing covers those stakes (with London-listed Harbour Energy) and its 50% contractor interest in Temsah, Reuters reports — where Eni made the c. 2 tcf Denise West discovery this year.

On the keeping side: After Fayoum-4 the rig moved to the Gharab exploration well, then drills two deepwater wells back-to-back for Arcius, BP’s 51-49 JV with XRG — which also holds BP’s interest in Zohr, at c. 30 tcf the Eastern Mediterranean’s largest gas field.

XRG now earns at both ends of Azerbaijan’s gas chain. Adnoc’s investment arm, TotalEnergies, and Socar have taken FID on the full-field development of Azerbaijan’s offshore Absheron, XRG said. The expansion quadruples output to 6 bcm a year from 1.5 bcm, plus 47k bbl / d of condensate, according to TotalEnergies, with startup in 2029. Total operates with 35%, Socar 35%, XRG 30%.

Why it matters: The FID comes less than two weeks after XRG closed its stake in the Southern Gas Corridor, which carries Azeri gas west — and Absheron’s output goes to Turkey through that network. The corridor stake is a minority one with no control over flows, but XRG earns on both the molecules and the route. Adnoc signed in June to take Absheron gas once it is online; the FID was expected in July. It also holds 38% of Turkmenistan’s block I and equity in five Rio Grande LNG trains.

L’imad is pushing ahead with its squeeze-out of AD Ports, issuing a mandatory acquisition notice to take over the remaining 1.07% stake in the firm via ADQ after it recently lifted its holding to 98.93%, according to an ADX disclosure (pdf). The buyout settled two weeks ahead of schedule, having moved a 9 October deadline forward to 25 September. L’imad has wasted no time with the squeeze-out either, moving ahead with the notice significantly faster than the 60-day deadline.

Nawy is moving its retail property business inside a regulated fund. Nawy Shares and CI Capital Asset Management (Ciam) signed an agreement to set up and manage real estate investment funds, with first subscriptions targeted early next year pending regulatory approvals, according to a joint statement. The co-owned vehicle is open to individual and institutional investors and will hold both projects under development and completed income-generating assets, with the option to structure individual issuances around specific projects.

Nawy has separately set up a multi-tranche fund company that owns the properties, with a licensed manager running them. “The multi-tranche setup allows us to release properties unit-by-unit on a tranche basis,” Nawy Shares Managing Director Ayman Magdy tells us — retail investors want to see the specific project, developer, and payment terms rather than a pooled portfolio. Properties are divided into 20-40 shares with tickets from EGP 20-25k, and 10-20 units release every Tuesday, typically selling out within hours.

What changes with the fund: Investment certificates via Misr for Central Clearing, Depository and Registry (MCDR) replace preliminary contracts. An independent FRA/CBE-registered valuer reassesses NAV every six months, and each tranche publishes semi-annual disclosures. Maximum fund life goes to 20 years from five, matching Egypt’s 12-15-year off-plan payment plans. Exits are governed by the fund prospectus and executed by the licensed manager, not by individual certificate-holder approvals.

SOUND SMART- The fund already delivers most of what tokenization promises — traceable ownership, transparent pricing, an MCDR registry, a future secondary market — Magdy argues: “Tokenization streamlines the process further, but our off-plan fund framework already fulfills all of these underlying requirements.” The fintech license needed for streamlined KYC and a live secondary market is still pending. Nawy separately bought UAE fractional platform SmartCrowd in July 2025 and secured Dubai VARA approval for a tokenization platform earlier this year.

Dubai investment group with offices in Burj Khalifa is in hot water over missed payments: Clients of AIX Investment Group accuse the firm of halting or delaying payouts on products that promised double-digit annual returns, the Financial Times reports, citing court documents, investors, and lawyers. Two investors have filed claims for USD 2 mn and USD 8 mn at the DIFC Courts, and thousands of clients could be affected. One claim describes AIX’s payment performance as “delayed, irregular and opaque.” Local authorities have also visited AIX’s premises to investigate, the salmon-colored paper says.

Raya Holding’s wholly owned Raya Integration will subscribe to a capital hike at Raya Data Center Services of up to USD 60 mn (c. EGP 3 bn), with proceeds used only to fund the equity portion of the purchase price for 100% of the target, the company said in a bourse filing (pdf). Raya Integration owns 60% of Raya Data Center Services, according to a separate disclosure (pdf).

It is contingent on winning. The board’s approval takes effect only if the acquisition is awarded to and completed by Raya Integration or Raya Data Center, definitive documents are signed, and conditions precedent and approvals come through. If the transaction falls away, so does the capital increase.

CIB is lending USD 80 mn to a Turkish textile group building for export out of Egypt. The package for Eroglu Global Holding’s Eroglu Knitting complex in Qantara West is a USD 75 mn seven-year medium-term loan for phase two and three machinery, plus a USD 5 mn working-capital facility, according to a statement (pdf). Total investment in the complex is USD 140 mn. The 150k sqm site targets 24 mn garments a year at full operation alongside yarn and dyed-fabric production, c. USD 165 mn of annual revenue, and more than 4.5k jobs. All output is for export — c. 50% to Europe, 30% to the US, the rest elsewhere.

The IsDB and the Arab Coordination Group are doubling their education facility. The Islamic Development Bank and the ACG are putting USD 800 mn of concessional financing into a second phase of SmartEd, pairing with USD 200 mn of Global Partnership for Education grants for a USD 1 bn package announced at the GPE replenishment conference, according to the statement. IsDB and the Opec Fund are each contributing USD 400 mn.

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