Expect blackouts until the middle of next month: The Electricity Ministry expects the ongoing rolling blackouts to continue until the middle of August as pressure on the country’s power generation infrastructure continues amid the summer heat, Youm7 reported yesterday, citing an anonymous Electricity Ministry official.

Power cuts have been a regular feature of daily life for a week now: The state-owned Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC) has been forced to cut the power in different areas of the country for up to an hour multiple times half as the ongoing heatwave sends electricity demand soaring. We’re now well into week two of rolling blackouts.

Why is this happening? We don’t have enough natural gas to fire power plants. The electricity and oil ministries say they are working to find a solution to the crisis.

Officials got our hopes up: The ministry and Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly have said in recent days that they expected to see demand load back down to normal levels by the middle of this week.

HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING-

#1- Less gas for the fertilizer industry: The government is diverting gas supplies from fertilizer plants to the national grid in a bid to plug some of the shortfall, Asharq Business reported yesterday. Some producers have seen their supplies fall by 20% this week, two people familiar with the matter reportedly told the news outlet, saying that companies have been officially notified about the decision. The gas cuts will apparently affect mostly producers of urea fertilizer, a low-cost nitrogenous fertilizer that consumes high volumes of gas.

An open-ended supply cut: The letter sent to the factories reportedly didn’t specify when the government expects gas supplies to return to normal.

The impact on production? It wasn’t immediately clear the extent to which the reduced supply will impact fertilizer production, though one of Asharq’s sources claimed that producers will “easily” be able to make up lost volumes when the gas supply returns to normal.

#2- Not just fertilizer companies? The government will look to solve the crisis by tapping feedstock for industrial and petrochemical companies, a government source told the news outlet earlier this week, without providing details.

Cement manufacturers also saw their gas supplies cut — but the cement supply glut should mean that it’s not a massive issue for most: The ministry is also dipping into the cement industry’s natural gas supply, but the extensive use of coal, together with the fact that plants are only running at 50-60% capacity due to the cement supply glut, should mean that operations remain unaffected, head of the Cairo Chamber of Commerce’s Building Materials Division Ahmed El Zeiny said on Ala Maso’uleety last night ( watch, runtime: 8:05).

#3- Gas supplies are up 5%: The amount of natural gas being fed to power plants increased to 117 mn cubic meters per day as of Tuesday from 111 mn cubic meters last week, government sources reportedly told Al Mal. The Electricity Ministry needs around 135 mn cubic meters of gas and 10k tons of mazut a day to support current consumption levels, an official said last week.

#4- More mazut:The Electricity Ministry yesterday increased the daily mazut (fuel oil) intake of electricity generators to 34k tons from the usual 20k tons, according to Al Mal.

The ministry wants to import more fuel oil, but this will require FX: Government sources told us earlier this week that they plan to import increased quantities of fuel oil to plug the shortfall of gas supplies responsible for the blackouts. According to Al Mal, the ministry has agreed to provide the necessary FX to cover the necessary increase in imports until the government gets its hands on the necessary gas supplies.

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