Gas supply disruption from Israel forces Egyptian fertilizer plants to stop
Egyptian fertilizer producers were forced to halt operations on Friday due to a drop in natural gas imports from Israel, industry sources told Reuters.
They said the gas import decline was caused by the suspension of operations at major Israeli gas fields resulting from tensions between Israel and Iran.
In response, an emergency plan was enacted prioritising gas allocations, including cutting supply to some industries, Egypt’s Petroleum Ministry said in a statement.
The ministry did not provide a date for when gas supply might return to normal, the sources said.
Leviathan and Karish, two of Israel's main gas fields, were closed on Friday. A third, Tamar, remained operational, one gas analyst told Reuters.
The Israeli Energy Ministry told Reuters that there are disruptions to the regular supply of natural gas, which have, among other consequences, led to a temporary suspension of exports.
It added that it will make every effort to resume supply as soon as possible.
Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said that Cairo was monitoring the regional situation closely and was aiming to increase its strategic stocks of various commodities, before holding a meeting with top energy officials and the central bank.
In a statement, Petroleum Minister Karim Badawi said his ministry was working to ensure stable gas supplies to power stations and had already contracted gas shipments and stockpiled fuel oil, while work was under way to bring docked floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) online.
Egypt has received three FSRUs but only one has started injecting gas into the national grid, according to Badawi, while the other two are being prepared and connected to ports.
Madbouly said, when all vessels are operational, Egypt's combined daily regasification capacity will reach 2,250 million cubic feet, more than double last year's capacity, adding that Egypt still hopes to lease a fourth unit to be used in emergencies.
Egypt had to increasingly rely on imported Israeli gas, since its own production started falling in 2022. Israeli gas accounts for 40 to 60 per cent of its total imported supply and about 15 to 20 per cent of its consumption, data from the Joint Organisations Data Initiative (JODI) shows.
Egypt signed several agreements with energy firms and trading houses this week to buy at least 150 cargoes of liquefied natural gas in the country's largest ever import purchases that will cost it over $8 billion at current prices.
(Reporting by Mohamed Ezz and Marwa Rashad; Editing by Joe Bavier)
