Egypt’s gas exports from Idku jumps to 800MCF/day

CAIRO – 27 February 2019: Egypt’s natural gas exports from Idku plant rose to currently 800 million cubic feet of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per day up from about 250 million cubic feet per day in early January and 300 million cubic feet per day in 2018.

Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum Tarek el-Molla clarified to a local newspaper that LNG exports from Idku rose, so Egypt strongly returned to international markets after achieving self-sufficiency.

Molla added that Egypt has taken steps to become a regional hub for energy trading, including exporting liquefied gas from Idku export plant or supplying quantities of gas to Jordan to meet part of its needs.

He elaborated that the amount of gas directed to exports gradually increased because the local consumption lessened during the winter session and the production rate increased, meeting the needs of the industrial sector, power plants, cars and houses.

Petroleum Minister Molla referred to his ministry’s plan to link wells of Zohr, North Alexandria and Burullus to contribute in increasing the local production and covering the consumption rates, and to operating liquefaction plants, besides the gas coming from Cyprus and Israel.

He further pointed to the stoppage of importing LNG in coincidence with achieving self-sufficiency, and the exploitation of the gas ship of the Norwegian Singapore company BW Gas in case of need.

The gas is exported from Idku by Malaysia’s PETRONAS, Royal Dutch Shell, and Egypt’s two main state oil and gas companies.

The estimated contractual share of Idku Plant is estimated at 1.13 billion cubic feet per day. The pumping rates have decreased since 2011 due to the decline of Egypt's natural gas production after the revolution of January 25 until it stopped completely since the beginning of 2015. Moreover, the plant needs to export about 22 liquefied gas shipments annually to achieve self-sufficiency.

On Feb. 26, Molla said that 2018 witnessed the completion of new stages to increase the production of natural gas from four major fields in the Mediterranean Sea.

He clarified that these fields were put on the production map with investment of more than $27 billion and production rates of 6.5 billion cubic feet per day expected upon the completion of all stages, noting that what has been achieved is the result of the completion and development of natural gas projects.

Investments in Mediterranean gas fields exceed $27B

CAIRO - 26 February 2019: Minister of Petroleum Tarek el-Molla said that 2018 witnessed the completion of new stages to increase the production of natural gas from four major fields in the Mediterranean Sea.