Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS), the state-owned gas firm, has asked its LNG suppliers to delay the delivery of at least 20 cargoes that it had to receive by the end of the year, anonymous sources familiar with the plans told Bloomberg, as Egypt struggles to anticipate actual gas demand.
The cargoes, which have been planned to arrive in Egypt by the end of December 2025, will now be rescheduled for delivery during the first three months of 2026, according to Bloomberg’s sources.
The rescheduling of LNG imports suggests that Egypt is not in an immediate need of much imported gas by the end of the year as demand has dropped following the summer cooling demand peak.
Egypt turned from a net LNG exporter to a net LNG importer at the end of 2024 as the country imported last year the highest number of LNG cargoes in years, as it looked to ease the strain on its grid and industry amid energy shortages that led to rolling blackouts last summer.
The biggest gas discovery in the Mediterranean, Zohr, helped Egypt become a net LNG exporter in the late 2010s.
However, plummeting domestic onshore gas production, rising demand for power generation, and more intense heat waves have combined in recent years to lift Egyptian demand for imported LNG.
After four years of declines, Egypt’s oil and gas production has started to rise in recent weeks, providing much-needed relief to the import bill of the North African country, data from Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources showed last month.
Since August, Egypt’s natural gas production has increased by more than 200 million cubic feet per day.
The potential drop in LNG demand from Egypt by the end of the year would be welcome news for Europe, which continues to fill its gas storage sites ahead of the winter and braces for an early-autumn cold snap in the coming weeks.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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