The Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) has reportedly purchased nine liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes through tender, according to Reuters. The shipment is scheduled for delivery between July and August, with an estimated price of about $11 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). Egypt had imported a total of 118 LNG cargoes in fiscal year (FY) 2016/2017, costing an import bill of $2.2bn, according to the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources. However, given the promising production of not only Zohr, but other deep-water fields such as the Atoll, Nooros, Taurus, and Libra fields, the ministry is aiming at importing only 80 cargoes throughout FY 2017/2018, recording a reduction of 32% in Egypt's current import bill of $200m monthly, ministry sources told Daily News Egypt. In February, Minister of Petroleum Tarek El-Molla told Daily News Egypt that Egypt is likely to achieve self-sufficiency by the end of 2018, after the gradual increase of production from the new fields, bridging the gap between production and domestic consumption. Hence, Egypt will not be obliged to import LNG. On Monday, the Ministry of Petroleum announced that the total daily added production of natural gas since the beginning of 2017, thus far amounted to about 1.5bn standard cubic feet per day (scf/day) and 5,170 barrels of condensates. Egypt's natural gas production reached about 5.5bn scf/day in 2017, up from 4.6bn scf/day in 2016, after adding a number of new discoveries to the national gas grid, namely the Zohr gas field. On a different note, Saudi Arabia's Aramco, the world's largest oil producer, agreed to supply Egyptian refineries with crude oil for another six months starting July, El-Molla said on Tuesday. Aramco would supply 500,000 to 1m barrels per month, according to the statement. Earlier in June, the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics said in its report that the total exports of crude oil during the first three months of 2018 reached $476m, versus $554m during the same period of the previous year—a decline of $77.9m.
