Power plants’ daily consumption of the natural gas increased to 3.75bn cubic feet of gas up from 3.4bn cubic feet of gas last week, due to higher temperatures and its effect on the generating units.
A source in the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) told Daily News Egypt that the company will secure 27,000 tonnes of fuel oil per day, compared to 30,000 previously, in addition to 6,000 tonnes of diesel for power plants to cover their fuel needs.
EGAS agreed with the Ministry of Electricity to provide 3.9bn cubic feet of gas maximum daily in August to operate the generating plants, the source added.
According to the source, the company agreed with plants that consume large amounts of gas to implement annual maintenance of their equipment during August and to stop pumping gas during this time to cover the power plant’s fuel needs.
The source pointed out that the company imports 1.3bn cubic feet of gas through a gasification port in Ain Sokhna and the Jordan gas line on a daily basis, which is the maximum import capacity.
The supply is divided into 1.2bn cubic feet of gas through Ain Sokhna port and 100m cubic feet of gas through Aqaba port in Jordan.
The local production of the natural gas has amounted to 4.05bn cubic feet of gas per day since the end of July.
According to the source 1.3bn cubic feet of gas per day is being pumped for household consumption, car fuel, and moderate-consumption factories, while 650m cubic feet of gas is pumped to high-consumption factories such as iron and fertilisers, which require 1bn cubic feet of gas per day to operate at a full capacity.
The source added that Egypt seeks to secure all the domestic market’s needs of natural gas during the summer, so that it will not stop providing fuel to the factories as power plant consumption increases.
