On February 15, the Egyptian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Resources TareK El Molla announced the signature of five oil and gas exploration agreements with Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, BP, Total and Exxon Mobile. The announcement ratifies Egypt’s commitment to transform itself into a regional energy hub that can export resources to neighbouring countries such as Jordan and, potentially, even to Europe and Asia. Just a few days earlier, Egypt had also signed other three major agreements for oil and gas extractions in the Suez Canal with Neptune Energy and Exxon Mobile. Regarding the latter, Minister El Molla announced on 11 February two deals worth $332 million that gave Exxon the ownership of 1.7 million acres offshore Egypt. International companies have been highly interested in the Egyptian energy industry since the Italian ENI discovered the giant Zohr gas field in Egypt’s territorial waters, in 2015. Such high investments in oil and gas exploration come at a time of increasing tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean, with the EU currently dealing with Turkey’s claims over gas resources recently discovered offshore Cyprus.