Egypt saves $3bn from halting gas importation

The Ministry of Petroleum has evaluated Egypt’s savings resulting from importing liquefied gas to be over $3bn this fiscal year after connecting the new gas explorations to the production.

According to a reliable source within the petroleum sector, the state paid about $280m monthly for importing shipments of liquefied gas, in order to meet the needs of the local market and that the import bill changes from a month to another since the new explorations were connected to the production last year, including Nooros, Zohr, and North Alexandria.

Gas imports is said to have recently seen a noticeable decline in terms of shipments thanks to the reliance on local gas production, reason why Egypt stopped importing natural liquefied gas after achieving self-sufficiency this month through local production once the new explorations were made and connected to the production.

However, the bill of the foreign partner’s share in the production of petroleum and gas fields is gauged to be $720m monthly, compared to $700m last month. The value varies according to the international petroleum prices.

“The bill of the share of foreign partners in the oil and gas fields has increased as a result of the increased production from new projects such as Zohr, Nawras and North Alexandria, as well as the fluctuations of the price of a barrel in the international oil markets,” he added.

Egypt imports 32-35% of its needs of fuel monthly to bridge the gap between local production and fuel consumption which is gauged to be 2.1m tonnes per month.

The imported amounts of petroleum products include amount from government agreements signed by the Petroleum Authority with several Arab countries. Some of the most prominent agreements include one with Saudi Arabian Aramco, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, and Iraqi SOMO Company.

The Egyptian General Petroleum Authority has managed to multiply the production rates of crude oil by 4.3%, reaching up to 657,000 barrels per day currently, compared to 630,000 barrels per day a year ago.