The Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum announced on Thursday that the country’s Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) has concluded an agreement with Norway’s Hoegh LNG to rent the Hoegh Galleon floating unit for liquefied natural gas (LNG).
In a statement, the ministry said the unit will be rented for storage and regasification “to secure additional needs for domestic consumption during the summer.”
Hoegh LNG said the unit would be leased for an interim period from June 2024 to February 2026 and deployed in Ain Sokhna on the Red Sea. The aim of the agreement was “to support energy security in Egypt”, the company said in a statement.
Egypt is expected to increase LNG imports during the summer months to meet high demand that caused a wave of power outages last summer, which shocked Egyptians who had been used to a decade of reliable power supplies by the gas producer.
Sources told Reuters that the government bought at least two LNG cargoes in April and is expected to purchase up to 20 over the spring and summer to prepare for increasing power demand.
Returning to imports would reverse the most populous Arab country’s position as a natural gas exporter in recent years, Reuters reported.
Egypt, which faces a growing demand for gas from its population of about 106 million people, is seeking to become a regional gas supplier, but has not made other major discoveries than the giant Zohr field in 2015.
Figures released by the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI) showed that in 2023, total natural gas production in Egypt decreased by 11.5 percent on an annual basis to reach about 59.29 billion cubic meters, the lowest production level since 2017.
