CAIRO — Egypt’s National Gas Grid is expanding thanks to growing natural gas reserves. The Petroleum Ministry added 1.9 million housing units to the National Gas Grid between January 2018 and March 2019, according to data released in early April. The country’s National Gas Grid exceeded 9.8 million housing units at the end of March 2019, and the grid is expected to reach 10 million units by the end of June.

Egypt has great potential in terms of natural resources, luring world investors into its energy sector, especially petrochemicals. Egypt’s proven natural gas reserves stand at 90 trillion cubic feet, according to Petroleum Ministry data from October 2018.

“Egypt will be self-sufficient in natural gas, and that will be for the interest of its public treasury, saving the funds that were earmarked to meet the country's needs through imports,” Ramadan Abul Ela, a petroleum engineering professor and vice president of Alexandria's Pharos University, told Al-Monitor.

On April 11, Masrawy quoted an anonymous source at the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company as saying that Italian oil and gas group Eni will increase the number of producing wells at Egypt’s giant Zohr gas field. The gas field, which was discovered by Eni in 2015, is located in the Mediterranean Sea north of Port Said. Eni has estimated Zohr's gas resources at around 30 trillion cubic feet.