Egypt to build $700 mln natural gas plant

The Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), in partnership with Italy’s Eni and Russia’s Lukoil, will build a natural gas processing plant in Egypt with total investments of $700 million, local media outlets reported Thursday.

The plant will be located in the western desert with a capacity to process 100 million cubic feet of gas a day (cf/d), Mohamed Al-Kaffas, the Chairman of Agiba Petroleum, told local media.

Explaining its operating mechanism, the official highlighted that the plant will be fed by the firms working in the Western Desert, which will link it to the natural gas complex in Alexandria through a 200 km-long pipeline.

Kaffas added that construction of the plant is expected to commence before the end of the current year, immediately after getting the governmental approval, and end in a three-year period.

Agiba Petroleum, a joint venture between EGPC and Eni, will dig 28 new natural gas wells that will enter production in tandem with the new station, Kaffas noted.

Egypt’s gas production currently stands at 5.5 billion cf/d, with a total natural gas consumption of about 6 billion cf/d.

In January, Tarek el-Molla, Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum, announced that the country is planning to stop importing liquified natural gas (LNG) by the end of its current fiscal year ending in June 2018.