The eighth shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) arrived on Saturday in Ain Sokhna Port and was received on a Norwegian gasification ship from Höegh to be converted to gas and pumped to the national grid. Chairman of the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS), Khaled Abdel Badie, told Daily News Egypt that the value of imported LNG shipments is regularly repaid to the foreign companies involved. Contracts signed with LNG companies stipulate a 30-day grace period to pay the value of the shipment starting from its arrival date in the country. Abdel Badie said that an LNG shipment is supplied to the Ain Sokhna Port every Friday in order to provide nearly 500 million cubic feet of gas per day. He added that the size of a single shipment of LNG ranges between 140,000 and 170,000 cubic metres, and companies were contracted in order to supply 42 shipments annually for the next five years. EGAS signed the final contract with Sveinung Støhle, CEO of Norwegian company Höegh, involving the first sailing ship to receive and store LNG shipments and reconvert the liquefied gas to its gaseous state and pump it to the national gas grid. The contract stipulated the renting of the ship for five years in order to provide amounts of natural gas that exceed 500 million cubic feet per day to meet the extra requirements of power plants. The final signing of the contract came after Höegh won the global tender launched by EGAS last year, where Malaysian, American and Dutch companies competed for it.
