USD 3 bn worth of LNG shipments locked in for 2025: Egypt has reportedly signed agreements with Shell and TotalEnergies to purchase a total of 60 LNG shipments in 2025 for around USD 3 bn, an unnamed government official told Asharq Business.

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The details: The agreement entails supplying around five shipments per month, each carrying between 160-165k cubic meters of LNG — equivalent to approximately 500 mn cubic feet of gas per day for local consumption over a one-week period, the source added. The contracts were signed in December and came into effect in early January, with each shipment valued at around USD 50 mn. The agreements include a one-year deferred payment period from the date of each shipment’s delivery, according to the source.

Remember: A senior government source told EnterpriseAM in December that the Oil Ministry wants to see local production rise to the point that the government will only need to import four shipments monthly, setting a target for domestic production to increase by up to 500 mcf/d by March. Egypt currently produces 4.3 bcf/d, alongside 900 mcf/d of imported gas, our source said, against demand of more than 6 bcf/d.

No one seems to agree when Egypt will stop importing LNG and regain its title as a net LNG exporter, with the more pessimistic pencilling in 2029 and the more optimistic seeing LNG deliveries ending by 2026 or 2027.

One encouraging sign is a resurgence of LNG re-export agreements: The Madbouly government is expected to ink agreements this month with France’s TotalEnergies and Italy’s Eni to transport Cypriot gas to Egypt to be liquefied and exported. This follows earlier news from the Oil Ministry that TotalEnergies wanted to supply gas from its fields in Cyprus to Egypt for liquefaction and re-export as LNG or to be fed directly into the grid.

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