Egypt to receive first LNG cargo next month amid plans to export gas

By MAHER CHMAYTELLI
Bloomberg

Egypt, with Africa’s third-largest reserves of natural gas, plans to receive its first cargo of foreign liquefied fuel next month, a government official said.

The country is set to import at least 76 shipments of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to help meet domestic needs until it can boost its own gas production and restore exports after halting them last year, said Hamdy Abdel Aziz, head of the Petroleum Ministry’s media department.

He didn’t identify the supplier of the shipment due in March at a floating regasification terminal in Ain al-Sokhna on the Gulf of Suez.

“We expect that by 2020 we will stop importing gas,” Abdel Aziz said in a phone interview Monday from Cairo.

“Depending on the needs of the local market and the diversity of its energy mix, we may resume exports after 2020 as major field development and exploration projects are under way," he added.

Egypt has signed 56 contracts for $12 billion in exploration investment since November 2013, according to the ministry. BP, RWE, Dana Gas, Edison and Total won licenses this year. State-run Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Co. is offering eight additional concessions in the Mediterranean Sea, the ministry said Sunday.

Egypt’s gas output peaked in 2009 at 647 billion cubic feet, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Exports dropped as the Arab world’s most populous nation used more fuel in industries and homes and amid attacks on a gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan.

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