‘Egyptian natural gas supply could resume by 2021’

AMMAN — Egypt expects to resume natural gas exports to Jordan by 2021, Tarek El Mola, Egypt’s minister of petroleum and mineral resources, said Monday.

“We have made new discoveries of several gas fields and this will help us gradually meet our rising local demand and then be able to resume our exports, and Jordan is a priority in this regard due to our strategic partnership and relation with the country,” Mola told The Jordan Times on the sidelines of the Jordan International Energy Summit.

“Over the past two years, we signed 66 concession agreements to increase our gas output and we will make several announcements very soon of new discoveries of gas fields and that development plans are under way,” said the minister.

He added that Al Zohr gas field, which was recently discovered, will start production in December 2017, which will increase output.

Egypt’s current production of natural gas stands at 4 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day, while its needs amount to around 5.2bcf per day, which forces it to resort to imports.

By 2021, Egypt will be able to produce around 6bcf per day due to the increase in production and rehabilitation of many fields, Mola added.

The minister said a project is under way to connect Jordan’s electricity grid to Egypt’s as part of collaboration between the two countries.

Jordan used to get around 80 per cent of its needs of natural gas from Egypt. 

Gas supply was repeatedly disrupted and came to a complete halt in early 2014, which prompted Jordan to build a unified natural gas terminal in Aqaba to import liquefied natural gas, and currently around 85 per cent of the country’s electricity is generated via imported LNG.

The Kingdom imports about 97 per cent of its energy needs annually.