CAIRO — Egyptian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek el-Mulla announced that Egypt achieved its highest rate of crude oil and gas production in August. Domestic production scored 1.9 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, while the investment rate in the sector climaxed to $30 billion. 

At the inauguration speech of the 10th Mediterranean Offshore Conference and Exhibition in Alexandria — delivered on his behalf Oct. 15 by Mohamed Safan, first undersecretary of the Ministry of Petroleum for Petroleum Affairs — Mulla said Egypt achieved natural gas self-sufficiency in September.

However, more than a year ago, Mulla had said Egypt would stop importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) in October 2018. In an interview on Aug. 15, 2018, with the Egyptian newspaper Al-Watan, Mulla had said, “September [2018] will see Egypt’s last gas shipments from suppliers abroad. We have been importing eight shipments and then we reduced them to seven. In September we will only import three shipments, which will be the last imported shipments. This means that as of Oct. 1 [2018] Egypt will completely stop imports, and this will be the beginning of gas self-sufficiency. We will start exporting surplus as of January 2019.”

In tandem with the completion of operation phases at Egypt’s Zohr field, which began actual production in mid-December 2017, and despite Mulla’s repeated announcement of achieving LNG self-sufficiency, Reuters reported Oct. 2 that Israeli energy companies are planning to increase their natural gas imports to Egypt.