Cairo – The Egyptian government launched an electrical power saving strategy intending to reduce natural gas consumption in the country. The goal is to increase gas exports, benefiting from the increase in global prices for the commodity. The Egyptian Prime Minister, Mostafa Madbouly (pictured above), spoke on television about the plan, which is directly related to the current situation of global crisis. Egypt is a producer and exporter of natural gas, a product that can be used to generate electrical power.
Madbouly said the Egyptian government is taking several measures in an attempt to deal with the international crisis, mainly with the increasing pressure on the US dollar after the price hikes of strategic commodities imported by the Egyptian market, such as fuel, wheat, maize, and others. He stated the government is working to increase foreign currency assets through less-conventional methods.
“We were examining how to take advantage of our available natural resources and maximize their use to provide foreign currency, and the most important of these resources is natural gas,” he said. About four years ago, the Egyptian government began implementing a plan to increase investments in natural gas generation projects. One of the most important of these projects was the Zohr field.
Madbouly explained over 60% of Egypt’s natural gas production is employed in plants to generate electrical power. “The more we rationalize the amounts of natural gas to supply the plants, the more we will have the opportunity to export a greater part of this natural wealth and, thus, bring in more foreign currency,” he said.
According to the Egyptian Prime Minister, the country’s Council of Ministers will review, at its next meeting, a set of executive decisions related to the plan to rationalize the use of electrical power, to be implemented immediately from the beginning of next week. In his statements, however, he discussed several measures to reduce energy consumption in the country.
Translated by Ahmed El Nagari & Elúsio Brasileiro