Egypt’s Oil Minister, Tarek El Molla, said that the country will increase its natural gas production to between 5.5 and 6bcf/d by the end of 2019, Reuters reported. Egypt currently produces 3.9bcf /d of natural gas. The average increase by 1.85bcf/d will aid in bridging the gap between energy consumption and production in Egypt.
The minister also added that Egypt currently has 12 ongoing natural gas field development projects that required a total of $33b of investments. Three of these 12 projects, which include the mammoth Mediterranean gas field Zohr discovered by Italy’s Eni last year, are forecast to collectively bring in 4.6bcf/d, by the beginning of 2019.
In addition, as Al Ahram Online wrote, the discoveries of new natural gas fields and the developments of the existing ones will help the country in the foreign currency crisis by lessening its dependence on imports for meeting the Egyptians energy needs. Egypt is currently spending $795m every month on energy imports, about $250-$300m of this amount is dedicated to natural gas.