Egypt’s daily natural gas consumption hits 6.1B cubic feet in May

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Egypt’s daily consumption of natural gas has been scaled up by around 300 million cubic feet daily, reaching 6.1 billion cubic feet in May, a government official told Al Arabiya Business.

Conventional power plants are currently receiving roughly 3 billion cubic feet per day of domestic gas, as the electricity sector's daily consumption of gas jumped from 2.7 billion cubic feet per day to 3 billion cubic feet over the winter and to about 12,000 tons of mazut per day as of May, the official said.

He pointed out that 5 billion cubic feet of domestic gas production are pumped into the local market daily.

In addition, he said that from 1.1 to 1.15 billion cubic feet of Israeli gas imported to Egypt are pumped via the transmission line between both countries, along with the gas pipeline through Jordan.

The official also noted that some liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments would be imported from abroad to meet any increase in consumption throughout the summer.

He expects the gas pumping rates estimated by the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources to meet the market demands, particularly in light of the nation’s two-hour daily electricity load reduction plan, which saves the country around $300 million monthly.

It was reported earlier that the Egyptian government aims to boost its natural gas production by about 8% in the next fiscal year (FY) 2024/2025 to an average of 5.7 billion cubic feet per day, compared to 5.3 billion cubic feet per day currently.

Egypt reportedly suspended exports of LNG as of May, in order to meet the demands of power plants.

On April 8th, it was reported that the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) is looking forward to importing at least one shipment of LNG a month until July or August.

It was also reported on April 4th that EGAS bought at least one shipment of LNG for delivery in May.