June 6, 2017
Mohamed Samir
Egypt is the second largest producer of natural gas in Africa after Algeria, yet Egypt’s power generation infrastructure is dependent on natural gas. More than 75% of the electricity generated in Egypt comes from natural gas plants. Egypt currently produces about 3.9bn cubic feet of gas per day and imports another 1-1.1bn cubic feet per day with an estimated cost of $300mn per month, in order to meet the growing needs of the electricity sector.
The country does have multiple areas of undeveloped reserves, which had not been able to afford their development, as the Egyptian government had not offered high enough prices to foreign firms capable of developing the reserves. That changed lately with the new Mediterranean discoveries.
Egyptian consumption of natural gas has been increasing by approximately 7% per year over the past decade. The increasing level of consumption combined with the decreasing level of production meant that Egypt was only able to export 5% of its total natural gas production in 2013.
