Egypt, Norway’s Scatec Sign MOU on Green Ammonia Project

Shipping containers pass through the Suez Canal in Ismailia, Egypt October 5, 2021. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
Shipping containers pass through the Suez Canal in Ismailia, Egypt October 5, 2021. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
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Egypt, Norway’s Scatec Sign MOU on Green Ammonia Project

Shipping containers pass through the Suez Canal in Ismailia, Egypt October 5, 2021. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
Shipping containers pass through the Suez Canal in Ismailia, Egypt October 5, 2021. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Egypt has signed a memorandum of understanding for a $5 billion project with Norway’s Scatec (SCATC.OL) to build its first green ammonia plant in the Suez Canal Economic Zone, the cabinet said on Thursday.

The green ammonia plant near the Red Sea port and industrial zone of Ain Sokhna would have production capacity of one million tons annually with the potential to expand to three million tons, the cabinet statement said.

The deal was agreed between Scatec, the Suez Canal Economic Zone, Egypt's Sovereign Fund and its Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy.

Scatec had signed an MOU with Egypt in December to study the development of a green ammonia plant that would be fueled by green hydrogen produced by renewable power.

The plant would be expected to start production in 2025, and the green ammonia would mainly be exported to European and Asian markets where demand for clean ammonia is growing rapidly, a joint statement issued by Scatec on Thursday said.

Egypt will host the COP27 climate conference in November and is pushing to develop green energy projects, including for the production of green hydrogen.

Separately, Egypt's annual urban consumer price inflation surged to its highest in nearly three years in February, driven by a sharp increase in food prices, figures from the state statistics agency CAPMAS showed on Thursday.

Inflation rose to a higher-than-expected 8.8% year on year from 7.3% in January, putting it near the upper limit of the central bank's 5-9% target range and indicating that the bank's monetary policy committee may increase interest rates when it meets on March 24.

February's inflation figure was the highest since June 2019.

Food prices rose 4.6% month on month in February, with vegetable prices jumping 17.2%.

Prices were pushed upwards by an increase in raw material and commodity prices worldwide that has been going on since the beginning of 2021, said Radwa El-Swaify of Pharos Securities Brokerage.

"Companies at the end of 2020 had stocked up on cheap inventory and were using it during 2021. So once this cheap stock started to deplete and they were buying at the higher prices, they started to become more expressive in terms of their own price increases,” she said.



With Nowhere Else to Hide, Gazans Shelter in Former Prison

24 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Younis: Displaced Palestinians stay in Asda prison in Khan Younis after the Israeli army ordered them to leave their homes in the towns of Abasan, Bani Suhaila, Ma'an, Al-Zana and a number of other villages, amid Israel-Hamas conflict. (dpa)
24 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Younis: Displaced Palestinians stay in Asda prison in Khan Younis after the Israeli army ordered them to leave their homes in the towns of Abasan, Bani Suhaila, Ma'an, Al-Zana and a number of other villages, amid Israel-Hamas conflict. (dpa)
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With Nowhere Else to Hide, Gazans Shelter in Former Prison

24 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Younis: Displaced Palestinians stay in Asda prison in Khan Younis after the Israeli army ordered them to leave their homes in the towns of Abasan, Bani Suhaila, Ma'an, Al-Zana and a number of other villages, amid Israel-Hamas conflict. (dpa)
24 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Younis: Displaced Palestinians stay in Asda prison in Khan Younis after the Israeli army ordered them to leave their homes in the towns of Abasan, Bani Suhaila, Ma'an, Al-Zana and a number of other villages, amid Israel-Hamas conflict. (dpa)

After weeks of Israeli bombardment left them with nowhere else to go, hundreds of Palestinians have ended up in a former Gaza prison built to hold murderers and thieves.

Yasmeen al-Dardasi said she and her family passed wounded people they were unable to help as they evacuated from a district in the southern city of Khan Younis towards its Central Correction and Rehabilitation Facility.

They spent a day under a tree before moving on to the former prison, where they now live in a prayer room. It offers protection from the blistering sun, but not much else.

Dardasi's husband has a damaged kidney and just one lung, but no mattress or blanket.

"We are not settled here either," said Dardasi, who like many Palestinians fears she will be uprooted once again.

Israel has said it goes out of its way to protect civilians in its war with the Palestinian group Hamas, which runs Gaza and led the attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that sparked the latest conflict.

Palestinians, many of whom have been displaced several times, say nowhere is free of Israeli bombardment, which has reduced much of Gaza to rubble.

An Israeli air strike killed at least 90 Palestinians in a designated humanitarian zone in the Al-Mawasi area on July 13, the territory's health ministry said, in an attack that Israel said targeted Hamas' elusive military chief Mohammed Deif.

On Thursday, Gaza's health ministry said Israeli military strikes on areas in eastern Khan Younis had killed 14 people.

Entire neighborhoods have been flattened in one of the most densely populated places in the world, where poverty and unemployment have long been widespread.

According to the United Nations, nine in ten people across Gaza are now internally displaced.

Israeli soldiers told Saria Abu Mustafa and her family that they should flee for safety as tanks were on their way, she said. The family had no time to change so they left in their prayer clothes.

After sleeping outside on sandy ground, they too found refuge in the prison, among piles of rubble and gaping holes in buildings from the battles which were fought there. Inmates had been released long before Israel attacked.

"We didn't take anything with us. We came here on foot, with children walking with us," she said, adding that many of the women had five or six children with them and that water was hard to find.

She held her niece, who was born during the conflict, which has killed her father and brothers.

When Hamas-led gunmen burst into southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7 they killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 people hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in the air and ground offensive Israel launched in response, Palestinian health officials say.

Hana Al-Sayed Abu Mustafa arrived at the prison after being displaced six times.

If Egyptian, US and Qatari mediators fail to secure a ceasefire they have long said is close, she and other Palestinians may be on the move once again. "Where should we go? All the places that we go to are dangerous," she said.