CAIRO: Qatar will grant Egypt five shipments of natural gas to help Egyptians get through the summer until mid-September, the Egyptian Petroleum Ministry said in a statement yesterday.
“Qatar will supply five cargoes of liquefied natural gas as a gift to the Egyptian people during the summer months, with the first of these shipments beginning at the end of July (and continuing) until mid-September,” Qatar’s Minister of Energy and Industry H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada (pictured) was quoted as saying in the statement. It did not give the size of the shipments.
A delegation of Egyptian officials, including Egypt’s Oil Minister Sherif Hadara, met Al Sada ahead of the decision.
The shipments will help Egypt get through a hot summer when energy consumption usually rises and the country faces frequent power cuts.
In April, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani said that Qatar would extend gas supplies to Egypt this summer as needed. Qatar will not deliver LNG directly to Egypt, which lacks import infrastructure to accept shipments, but will replace exports from Egypt with its own gas.
At current prices the Qatari cargoes would fetch about $321 million on the open spot market, based on a typical Qatari shipment of 210,000 cubic metres and prevailing Asian spot prices. Egypt will take a share of natural gas produced by foreign firms for its use and Qatar will export LNG directly to these companies’ customers. BG Group, a stakeholder in the Idku LNG export terminal, is expected to benefit from the swap deal between Qatar and Egypt. Reuters
