MOSCOW, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- Russia and Egypt have signed to explore natural gas and oil in Egypt, holder of Africa's third largest reserves.
RIA Novosti reports Russian state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom reached a deal with Rashid Petroleum Co. and the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Co., during recent talks in Moscow.
"The sides also discussed sales of Russian oil-and-gas equipment to Egypt," a Gazprom statement said.
The three companies will work together to search for and explore Egypt's oil and gas reserves.
Egypt has about 1.89 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves, third in Africa behind Algeria and Nigeria.
Gazprom has been successful in corning Russia's natural gas market, which is the largest set of reserves in the world.
It recently paid nearly $8 billion for a majority stake in Sakhalin Energy, which was completely controlled by Royal Dutch Shell and Japanese companies Mitsui and Mitsubishi.
This occurred after a drawn out battle with Russian complaints the project was billions over budget and violated environmental regulations.
Now Gazprom is looking to increase its presence in both upstream and downstream operations outside Russia.
