LONDON/CAIRO - Egypt is finding it increasingly difficult to import fuel as foreign banks and traders pull the plug on credit and charge high premiums due to concerns over its financial and political stability, trading and banking sources said. Sporadic international loans have so far helped, and the country requested up to $4.8 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday, but without such ad-hoc interventions, Egypt could quickly end up like debt-stricken Greece, dependent on a narrow pool of traders charging richly for supplies. That could put a dangerous strain on Egypt's finances, which are already under pressure from high fuel subsidies it can ill afford to maintain but will not want to cut in the precarious first months of new Islamist President Mohamed Mursi's tenure. Since the election of Mursi in June this year following the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, the number of suppliers has shrunk as oil traders are struggling to secure letters of credit from banks. "As soon as they changed the president, banks raised the costs of letters of credit involving EGPC," one trader involved in supplying Egypt said, referring to Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation. A spokesman for Egypt's oil ministry declined to comment and asked for queries to be directed to EGPC. No one at EGPC was available for official comment on Wednesday and Thursday. Mursi took the world aback when he dismissed top generals earlier this month, raising fears that the army, from which all Egypt's presidents had come for six decades after ousting the monarchy, might retaliate, though they have so far raised no challenge. In the strongest evidence to date of rising fuel import difficulties, traders said Egypt had to cancel a tender to buy crude earlier this month after receiving no bids, and also had to scrap parts of a gasoline import tender because the prices on offer were too high. "The costs that banks apply to any transaction involving EGPC are now double that of a normal transaction," another trader said. Some tenders have been relaunched with new terms. An official at EGPC, who declined to be named because he is not allowed to speak to the press, confirmed that some tenders had been delayed for a few days but declined to discuss reasons and details.
