Petroleum Minister Tareq Mulla reviewed on Tuesday with Marco Villa, the President of Technip Region EMIA(4), the progress realized so far in two projects being implemented by the company.

The Italian company is carrying out expansions of Medor lab and establishing a complex for diesel oil hydrogen cracking at an oil refinery lab in the Upper Egypt governorate of Assiut, the minister said in a statement.

The two projects with 3.7 billion dollar investment are vital for securing needed fuel supplies for local market and cutting imports.

The Medor lab expansion will up the lab's refining capacity by 60 percent to stand at 175,000 barrels per day, he said