In an effort to alleviate the country’s energy burdens, Egypt has received in the last few days a 53 thousand tons shipment of gas from Algeria, reported the Algerian independent Al-Fadjr.
The shipment contained 33 thousand tons of diesel gas and 20 thousand tons of butane. The imported quantities are expected to grow during this year as the government has negotiated with Algerian petroleum company SONATRACH to increase its butane gas imports from the country to one million per year, according to Al-Ahram.
Algeria is the main liquefied butane supplier to Egypt, as stipulated in the agreement between the two countries that was renewed last July. Libya and Saudi Arabia are also on the list of the country’s cooking gas providers, the later has sent a 6400 tons shipment of liquefied butane to Suez port last week, as mentioned in Amwal Al-Ghad.
The head of the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation Hani Dahi said President Mohamed Morsy has demanded a rise in imports of cooking gas to provide a significant strategic reserve during the winter, he added that Egypt had increased butane imports from Algeria since last year’s uprising from 360,000 tons per year to 700,000 tons per year.
The vice president of the petroleum products section in the chambers of commerce union Walid Sakr blamed the government for the crisis and called it an official plan to reduce the energy subsidies in the future, according to the Algerian press.
The petroleum products subsidies reached EGP 113.2 billion in the 2011/2012 budget.
