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CAIRO, May 14 (Reuters) - Egypt's debt to foreign oilcompanies operating in the Arab country was $5.9 billion by theend of April, the head of the state-run oil company said inremarks published on Wednesday.
Money owed to foreign oil majors including BP and BG Grouptotalled $4.9 billion in December, indicating Cairo's debts tothe firms continue to mount despite efforts to restore investorconfidence by paying down the arrears.
"BG Group is owed the biggest debt," Tarek El Molla,chairman of Egyptian General Petroleum Corp, told al-Shorouqnewspaper, without elaborating.
Egypt has delayed payments to oil and gas firms as itseconomy has been hammered by almost three years of instabilitysince a popular uprising ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.Some of the debts were incurred before the revolt.
Egypt paid back $1.5 billion at the end of last year, asignal that the government is trying to get firms investingagain in extraction and exploration, badly needed to helpaddress a severe energy crunch.
Oil Minister Sherif Ismail said in February the governmenthoped to schedule repayments of around $3.5 billion that will becompleted by 2016.
Energy prices in Egypt are among the lowest in the world,and the cash-strapped government spends more than a fifth of itsbudget on keeping them down. Artificially low prices providelittle incentive for Egyptians to curb consumption.
Separately, Egypt's central bank said it would offer $1.1billion in an exceptional foreign currency auction on WednesdayCBEO to allow banks to meet demand for hard currency needed topay for food imports. (Reporting by Ehab Farouk; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing byMark Heinrich)
