Pharos’ main man goes back to the East Med future

The independent’s CEO was making oil discoveries in the Gulf of Sinai in the 1970s. Now he is back in the region

“We lit the flare on the oil discovery just as [former Israeli prime minister Menachem] Begin flew back to Tel Aviv following the peace treaty.” So says Ed Story, CEO of London-listed Pharos Energy, of his first experience of the Eastern Mediterranean upstream. Now Story is back in the region, following Pharos’ 2019 deal for Merlon Petroleum El Fayum, which gives it production in Egypt’s Western Desert, and having taken exploration licences in Israel. What attracted you back to the East Med?  Story: We saw in the Merlon acquisition the potential to replicate what they had done—making a Western Desert discovery and subsequently selling that entity to [US independent] Apache, which generated A