Cairo has extended the deadline of a bid round for ten Red Sea blocks from 1 August, to 15 September. The bid round, launched in March (MEES, 15 March), has garnered only minimal interest: no sizable firms have submitted offers. Only 12 wells have ever been drilled in Egypt’s Red Sea, and just two since 1990 – as opposed to the Gulf of Suez to the north, where Q1 output was 245,000 b/d.