CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian Petroleum Minister Tarek El Molla expects to put in place a schedule to repay arrears to international oil companies soon, he said on Tuesday on the sidelines of an oil conference in Cairo.

"We didn't yet set a date, however we are committed. We are going to have shortly a repayment schedule agreement with partners," El Molla said.

Egypt's arrears owed to foreign oil companies stood at $3.5 billion at the end of December, down from $3.6 billion in September, El Molla said last month.

According to an IMF report released last month, Egypt has pledged to eliminate its arrears to foreign oil and gas companies by the end of June 2019 and to not accumulate new arrears. 

(Reporting by Lin Noueihed and Eric Knecht; writing by Asma Alsharif; editing by Jason Neely)