Energy subsidies drop to 40%

CAIRO – 3 July 2017: The Egyptian government decreased the value of energy subsidies to 40 percent of the real costs on Thursday as a step toward removing them altogether as part of the state’s economic reforms program.

Deputy Minister of Petroleum for Gas Projects Mohamed Mohamed Hassanein Radwan told Egypt Today that one of the advantages of the decision is that citizens would decrease their consumption of energy as its prices went up. Radwan further noted that the decrease in consumption rates would be obvious in the cases of gasoline and diesel.


Radwan added that the butane gas cylinder, whose consumer price doubled from LE 15 ($0.816) to LE 30.9 ($1.633) is subsidized by LE 85 ($4.628). The real cost of a cylinder is LE 115 ($6.262). He said that the recent reduction of subsidies brought prices closer to the actual costs, but not completely the same.

The price of 80-octane gasoline soared from LE 1.60 ($0.08) to LE 3.65 per liter, while the 92-octane increased from LE 3.50 to LE 5.00 per liter.