Petrojet will build the USD 170 mn pipeline carrying Cypriot gas to Damietta for export

Good morning, lovely people. The biggest IPO the EGX has seen in at least a decade is now trading, and it opened quietly, up 0.19% on a price set right at fair value. Still early days, and we will be watching.

We also know where a good chunk of the EGP 36.37 bn IPO proceeds is headed: the Finance Ministry will take up to half of it to ease public debt pressures, a senior government official tells us, and the cabinet has approved the same split for state offerings more broadly. Below you will read about the trading, the valuation, and what one fund manager thinks the state should do differently next time.

The Finance Ministry is reaching into a different pocket this time: our tax bill. The country’s first tax-backed sukuk launches this month as a pilot issuance, Mae Adel, the finance minister’s deputy for public debt management, tells us. Taxpayers will subscribe at a bank branch — up to 20-25% of last year’s tax bill — and collect a taxfree return floating around 19%. No bourse trading will be offered until the second half of next year, since the ministry wants the ownership-transfer system tested first.

Over in industry, the government is back in talks with Brussels over the EU’s carbon border levy, asking for a phased timetable for Egyptian exports, two senior government officials tell us. The route that keeps part of the bill in Egypt runs through a domestic carbon price the state hasn’t written yet, and officials say the capacity to verify emissions isn’t there either.

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It’s mail time! Who writes EnterpriseAM’s subject lines? Why are our podcasts audio only? How do we preserve the craft of writing while integrating AI policies across the newsroom?

These are some of the questions readers and listeners have sent us over the years, so on an upcoming episode of Making It, Patrick and the team will answer them along with anything else you’re curious about: whether it’s about the business, our coverage, how the newsroom is run, or why we do things the way we do.

Have a question for us? Record it as a voice memo (30-45 seconds), tell us your name at the top, and send it to [email protected] by Saturday, 7 November. We’ll also take written questions, but since we’re an audio show, we’d love to play yours in your own voice.

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Power Trip’s final issue turns to the people paying the bill. We look at the cost of a backup generator or going solar, how your electricity bill is really calculated and whether the price is right, whether an EV pays off against a petrol car today, and why green energy keeps skipping the consumer.

Coming to your inbox tomorrow, 4 November.

Next stop, Damietta

Petrojet will build the pipeline carrying Cypriot gas to Damietta: State-owned contractor Petrojet was awarded a USD 170 mn contract for an onshore gas pipeline connecting to the Damietta LNG export terminal, Meed reports, citing industry sources. The line is part of the export route for Cyprus’ offshore Cronos field, which Eni — the project operator — says will restart the Damietta LNG plant and restore structural LNG exports from Egypt.

The plan leans on infrastructure Egypt already has: Eni and TotalEnergies plan to process Cronos gas in Egypt and liquefy it in Damietta, mostly for shipment to Europe, using what Eni calls a “fast-track approach based on regional integration and the use of existing infrastructure.”

Why this matters: For Egypt, the commercial window is in handling another country’s gas. It earns from providing part of the route and from its state companies’ equity in the plant, as we explained last month, and it puts spare infrastructure back to work.

The fees could reach 92 cents per mn BTU: 30 cents for moving and processing the volumes through the Zohr facilities near Port Said, and 62 cents for liquefying them at Damietta, a total of about USD 165 mn a year once flows reach 500 mmcf / d. That take comes on top of fees up and down the chain (transport, processing, liquefaction) under the tariff agreement Cairo initiated with the Cronos partners in October 2025 (the levels weren’t disclosed). Cairo is also asking for roughly 25% of the volumes, about 125 mmcf / d, for the domestic market.

Work on the Egyptian leg starts early next year: The roughly 40 km pipeline will run from the Zohr processing facilities in Port Said to Damietta, and the build should take about 12 months.

Cronos is now in execution, with first gas due in 1H 2028: Eni signed the project’s main engineering, procurement, construction, and drilling contracts last week, following a final investment decision in July. Baker Hughes, TechnipFMC, Dalmine, and McDermott are among the contractors, according to Meed. Eni operates the field with a 50% stake alongside TotalEnergies, and output is expected to plateau at 500 mmcf / d.

Pricier by the pound

JPMorgan raised its Egypt year-end inflation forecast to 14.3% from 13.4%, according to a research note cited by Asharq Business, as the EGP slide starts feeding through to prices. The local currency has shed roughly 7.3% against the greenback since the start of October, driven largely by hot-money outflows. The bank also lifted its forward 12-month inflation forecast by 0.7 percentage points. That pickup won’t show in October’s print yet, which JPMorgan now expects at 13.8% (up from its prior 13%), thanks to a high base from October 2025’s price jump. With September at 13.9%, the climb to 14.3% should show up in the November and December prints.

A different inflation story from March: Back then foreign investors pulled USD 13-14 bn out of Egyptian treasury bills in a single month, per Deutsche Bank, and the EGP fell from about EGP 48 to EGP 53.5 against the USD between the end of February and the end of March, with fuel prices raised on 10 March.

JPMorgan reads the CBE’s rate hike as an attempt to buy time: The Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) 100 bps hike caught most analysts off guard, lifting the overnight deposit rate to 20% in its first increase since March 2024 and reversing the September stance that existing tightening was buffer enough. The bank sees the move as pre-emptive, aimed at anchoring inflation expectations, and says widening Egypt’s real interest rate buffer to over 6 percentage points gives the CBE enough room to absorb the weaker EGP without hiking again at its December meeting. While policy rates have peaked for this mini-cycle, the bank sees monetary easing remaining locked away until 2H 2027, keeping short-term working capital debt expensive.

What other analysts expect: Deutsche Bank had already pushed its end-2026 inflation call to 15.7% from 14.7%, and expects inflation to stay elevated through the first half of 2027 before easing to 12% by December, against 10.9% previously.

Back through Suez

Shipping giants Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd are moving their joint ME1 India–Europe service from the Cape of Good Hope back through the Suez Canal, with the first sailings leaving on 4 and 13 November, according to a company statement. ME1 follows AE5, AE11, AE12, and ME2, which switched in September. The carriers said they are monitoring the security situation closely and that further changes depend on continued stability in the Red Sea.

IN CONTEXT- The canal is climbing back with the shift: container-ship net tonnage through Suez reached 72.1 mn tons in January-August, up 54.2% on the same stretch of 2025, and Maersk-affiliated transits hit 276 in January-September against 146 a year earlier. Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen told Suez Canal Authority Chairman Osama Rabie on 30 October that Suez “remains the attractive route.”

How do you help build a brand as successful as Gourmet without really knowing much about food? Dalia Sultan, chief innovation officer at Gourmet Egypt and the force behind “Handcrafted by Gourmet,” traces her path from marketing to product to steering the company’s leap into manufacturing.

Listen to the episode on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Anghami | YouTube

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PSA-

WEATHER- Cairo is basking in another sun-soaked autumn day, with a high of 30°C and a low of 20°C, down two degrees on yesterday’s high while the overnight floor holds

It’s cooler on the coast in Alexandria too, with a high of 28°C and a low of 20°C.

The big story abroad

US voters are heading to the polls today in midterm elections that will determine whether President Donald Trump’s Republicans hold on to their majorities in Congress. Voters are focused on rising prices, which many attribute to Trump’s tariffs and the Iran war. The White House has reportedly been preparing for months for a Democratic victory, identifying ways Trump could keep pushing his agenda on immigration, tariffs, housing, and federal spending without Congress, while getting ready for potential investigations into his administration. Trump said that if Republicans lose, he could issue vetoes for “a month or two” before reaching common ground with Democrats.

Anthropic plans to spend more than USD 895 bn in the next few years, mostly on computing power and infrastructure. The Claude chatbot maker expects about USD 448 bn of that to come due by the end of 2030, including roughly USD 70 bn it must pay in the 12 months to September 2027. The company reported nearly USD 17 bn in revenue for the third quarter, up from USD 1.4 bn a year earlier, as it pitches investors ahead of an IPO that could break records.

Germany has warned that spyware may have compromised the iPhones of government officials and lawmakers. The Federal Office for Information Security issued an urgent notice over the weekend telling anyone who had recently received a security alert from Apple to treat their phone as no longer safe. The attack used a “zero-click” flaw, so the hackers needed only a target’s phone number and the owner didn’t have to click a link or open a file. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s spokesman, Stefan Kornelius, said the government was taking the incident very seriously and that authorities were working “flat out” to investigate it and help those affected. He declined to say whether Merz himself was among the targets.

*** It’s Going Green day — your weekly briefing of all things green in Egypt: EnterpriseAM’s green economy vertical focuses each Tuesday on the business of renewable energy and sustainable practices in Egypt, everything from solar and wind energy through to water, waste management, sustainable building practices and how you can make your business greener, whatever the sector.

In today’s issue: We look into how development loans and Chinese partners power Egypt’s 13.85 GWh battery storage push.