Cairo - Mubasher: The Egyptian minister of petroleum said that Egypt will achieve self-sufficiency in natural gas by the end of 2018, according to a statement.
Tareq El Molla added is his statement on Saturday that the government was planning to achieve self-sufficiency by 2020-2021 but accelerating development plans will help achieve this target sooner.
According to El Molla, the ministry is targeting an increase in natural gas production by 1 billion cubic feet before the end of 2017, as Zohr gas field will begin operating, besides 4.4 billion cubic feet that are currently being pumped into the national gas grid.
The minister also expects natural gas production to increase by 500 million cubic feet per day by mid-2017 from fields in north of Alexandria as well as Noras field which production has reached around 870 million cubic feet.
The increase in production, with new gas fields, will help lower liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, thus easing the pressure of foreign currency reserves, according to El Molla.
Egypt currently imports around 1.2 billion cubic feet of LNG per day, with a cost of nearly $250 million per month, but when 1.5 billion cubic feet is added to daily production, around $280 million will be saved every month, if prices continued their current rising trend, the minister explained.
