Egypt's natural gas exports decreased by 46 percent to $120 million in November 2013 compared to the same month a year earlier according to the monthly bulletin released by the Cabinet's Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC). Natural gas' production decreased by 8 percent during the same period while consumption decreased by only 3 percent resulting on a wider gap between production and consumption. Petroleum Minister Sherif Ismail said on Thursday, the Egyptian government will allow companies to import gas independently using the government's network for the first time in order to address energy shortages that limit their production. Egyptian oil production declined by 1.5 in November and exports lost 1.2 percent of their value to $473 million. However, local consumption of oil products increased by 0.7 percent. At another hand, Egypt's electricity consumption grew by 3.8 percent in November 2013 compared to the same month of last year to 11.9 million Kilowatt. However, production increased by only 2.2 percent only during the same period. Both production and consumption decreased in November compared to last October. Energy shortages have been sensed in Egypt since 2008 but the crisis intensified during the last two years. Shortage of natural gas production reportedly affected electricity production making current cut common in summer when consumption reaches a pick. This winter and last winter, electricity cut became common in winter as well. The country was hit by many crisis due to the shortages of cooking gas cylinder, diesel and gasoline leading to long queues in front of depots and gas stations in different occasions. Gasoline and diesel shortage where reported to be one of the reason that precipitated Mohamed Mursi's ouster in June 2013. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/92346.aspx
