ABU DHABI- Egypt is expecting to begin exporting 60-65 million cubic feet of gas per day to Lebanon by early next year, Egyptian Petroleum Minister Tarek El Molla said on Tuesday.

Egypt will supply the gas, in line with the quantity that Lebanon had requested, "as soon as we can ... we might expect it end of the year, early next year", Molla said on the sidelines of an oil and gas conference in Abu Dhabi.

"We are just (doing) due diligence, checking the pipelines," he said.

Under a U.S.-backed plan to help ease Lebanon's power crisis, Egypt will supply natural gas to Lebanon via a pipeline passing through Jordan and Syria. 

(Reporting by Yousef Saba Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Kirsten Donovan) ((Aidan.Lewis@tr.com; +20-1001174410;))