The Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) has increased the amount of gas exported through Dutch Shell's Idku plant, to about 500m cubic feet per day, compared to 300m feet during the first four months of the current fiscal year. A source at EGAS informed Daily News Egypt that the entire production of the Burulus and Rashid fields, is exported through Idku's liquefaction plant. He explained that the domestic consumption declined with the entry of winter. He added that Shell exports about five liquefied gas shipments per month to global markets. Shell has agreed with the ministry of petroleum to gradually increase the volume of exports for its Idku liquefaction plant, in return for accelerating the development of Phase 9B in the Burulus gas fields, to achieve a return that will enable it to pay the operating expenses, and realise profits for the shareholders. He explained that the wells of phase 9B will contribute towards increasing the production of fields, and compensate for the rate of the project's natural decline, resulting from the foreign partner's failure to develop in the past years. The foreign partner stopped working for two years, as a result of accumulating debts with the Egyptian government, and stopped exporting gas through Idku, before the ministry of petroleum succeeded in paying its dues, and encouraged the partners to resume pumping investments into the project. The ministry is to operate the plant at full capacity by 2020/21. In order to achieve self-sufficiency, the plant needs to export about 22 liquefied gas shipments annually.
