A government source estimated Egypt's consumption of petroleum products and natural gas at 92.4m tonnes in the fiscal year (FY) 2019/20, compared to 89.7m tonnes in FY 2018/19. Egypt's consumption of natural gas rose from 48m tonnes in FY 2018/19 to 51.1m tonnes this year, the source said. He attributed this year's estimated consumption increase to the increased needs of the electricity sector for petroleum products and gas. The sources said that the annual increase in the consumption of petroleum products such as petrol, diesel, jet fuel, and gas locally accounted for about 4%. While the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders consumption was reduced by about 2% annually due to the expansion of delivering natural gas to residential units. He pointed out that the Ministry of Petroleum succeeded in reducing the deficit between domestic production and consumption of petrol by 3.8% during the current fiscal year, bringing the total domestic production to about 7.6m tonnes annually compared to 8m tons consumption. He added that the production of domestic diesel will increase to about 14.7m tonnes annually during the current fiscal year, compared to 16.8m tonnes consumption, which reduces the deficit to about 12.5%. The sources pointed out that the rate of production of the LPG will increase to 2.6m tonnes per year compared to about 3.9m tonnes of domestic consumption, to reduce the deficit to 33.3%. He pointed out that the production of jet fuel domestically increased to 4.1m tonnes annually, and consumption at about 670,000 tonnes, which achieves an exportable surplus of 3.43m tonnes during the current fiscal year. The sources said that Egypt has achieved self-sufficiency of natural gas locally and began to export shipments of liquefied natural gas to international markets, in addition to providing the needs of Jordan. He explained that the increase in domestic production of petroleum products is a result of the exploitation of the capacities in Egyptian refiners, and the import of crude oil instead of derivatives, which saves millions of dollars to the state treasury. The aim is to achieve self-sufficiency of fuel and petroleum products, coinciding with the completion and implementation of all new expansions of Egyptian refineries during FY 2022/23. Egypt has about eight crude oil refineries with a production capacity of 38m tonnes, of which about 25m tonnes are used annually.
