Latest: Egyptian fertilizer producers have been notified of a new 33 percent reduction in their natural gas supplies, Reuters reported on Sunday, citing a company statement from Misr Fertilizers Production Company (MOPCO) and industry officials, as the country seeks to curb the need for expensive LNG imports. The reduction follows an earlier 20 percent cut to gas supplies for fertilizer plants. When the earlier cut was announced, MOPCO and Abu Qir Fertilizers said they would manage production in line with available gas, and Abu Qir said it had contingency plans for managing inventory and rescheduling maintenance. The Petroleum Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters said.
Egypt’s gas output fell to 3.63 billion cubic feet a day in August, as older fields declined faster than new wells came online, and the price of replacing that gas has doubled. A government official told Asharq Bloomberg that the price of a single LNG cargo has risen as much as 100 percent since September, to more than 100 million dollars. QatarEnergy has kept its LNG deliveries to Egypt under force majeure since April and on October 28 extended that to the end of December.
Cairo is managing the bill by buying less and burning dirtier. It has asked suppliers to push five of its 15 November LNG cargoes into 2027, on top of about 15 cargoes already deferred since July. The Petroleum Ministry budgeted 10.1 billion dollars for LNG imports in the fiscal year that began July 1 and had spent 5.8 billion dollars of it by October 6, with about 1 billion dollars set aside for November cargoes. To cut the bill, the state buyer EGPC bought six cargoes of high sulfur fuel oil for delivery in November and December, and Egypt’s fuel oil imports exceeded 640,000 tons in October.
The decline underneath is structural. Output averaged 4.87 billion cubic feet a day in 2024, an eight year low, and about 4 billion a day in the second half of 2025, and in July Egypt imported more gas than it produced for the first time on record. Imports eased to 3.44 billion cubic feet a day in August, still almost half of consumption, split between 2.24 billion a day of LNG and 1.20 billion a day by pipeline from Israel. Existing fields lose about 120 million cubic feet a day of output each month, and Kpler expects new wells and Shell’s Mina West field to hold production flat only in early 2027 before the decline resumes.
The offsetting programme is exploration and renewables. Petroleum Minister Karim Badawi pledged on September 16 to add about 330 million cubic feet a day by the end of 2026, and on November 1 the ministry moved the bid deadlines for two exploration rounds, covering 14 blocks in the Mediterranean, the Nile Delta, North Sinai, the Western Desert and the Gulf of Suez, to December 14 after companies asked for more time. Foreign partners have committed more than 19 billion dollars to Egypt over the next three years, and the finance ministry estimates each gigawatt of new solar, wind or nuclear capacity saves about 250 million dollars in gas imports.