Egypt’s Prime Minister, Mostafa Madbouly, announced that the country needs to import approximately $1.18 billion worth of mazut fuel oil and natural gas to alleviate ongoing power cuts, which have been worsened by successive heat waves.
It hopes the shipments will arrive in full around the third week of July, by which point the government aims to stop cutting power during the remaining summer months, he added.
It has already started contracting for 300,000 tons of mazut worth $180 million to boost its strategic reserves, which are expected to arrive early next week.
Egypt’s government on Monday extended daily power cuts to three hours from two hours previously in response to a surge in domestic electricity consumption during the latest heat wave.
These three-hour cuts will continue until the end of June before returning to two hours in the first half of July with the aim of stopping completely for the rest of the summer, Madbouly said on Tuesday.
Since July last year, load shedding linked to falling gas production, rising demand, and a shortage of foreign currency has led to scheduled two-hour daily power cuts in most areas.
“We had said that we planned to end load shedding by the end of 2024. We do not have a power generation problem or a network problem; we are unable to provide fuel,” Madbouly said on Tuesday.
He said production in a neighboring country’s gas field had come to a full halt for 12 hours, leading to an interruption in the supply, without naming the country or the gas field.
Abu Qir Fertilizers in Egypt announced that it had halted production at three of its plants due to a cut in their natural gas supply.
