Jordan will resume pipeline gas imports from Egypt through the Arab Gas Pipeline (AGP) in January 2019, an unnamed Jordanian government official told Hellenic Shipping News.
Egyptian state-owned EGAS had been planning to resume pipeline exports to Jordan in 2019, and in March, Egypt’s Petroleum Minister Tarek El Molla announced that the exports will resume in 2019.
Egypt’s gas exports to Jordan and Israel began in 2003, under a 2.47bn cubic metre per year long-term contract with Jordanian state-owned power utility Nepco.
However, the AGP interrupted its operations in March 2012 after several attacks following Egypt’s 25 January Revolution, mainly carried out by militants in the Sinai Peninsula. Since then, the pipeline has not been reopened.
Under an agreement in August 2015, Egypt started importing some re-gasified LNG. These imports were a share of the cargoes that Egypt had requested be delivered to the Aqaba terminal as a compensation for halting its own pipeline exports.
Since 2015, Jordan has been exporting gas to Egypt through the reversed AGP, and is expected to supply gas to Egypt again during the peak demand period in August-September this year, the government official told Hellenic Shipping News.
Egypt is the second largest producer of natural gas in Africa after Algeria, yet Egypt’s power generation infrastructure is dependent on natural gas. More than 75% of the electricity generated in Egypt comes from natural gas plants. Egypt currently produces about 6bn cubic feet of gas per day and is expected to reach 6.7bn cubic feet of gas per day by the end of 2018.
In February, El Molla told Daily News Egypt that Egypt is likely to achieve self-sufficiency by the end of 2018, after the gradual increase of production from the new fields, bridging the gap between production and domestic consumption. Hence, Egypt will not be obliged to import LNG.
The increase of Zohr gas field output to 1.75bn cubic feet daily and the production rise in other wells will contribute to the rise of Egypt’s total gas production by the end of 2018.
