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The Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources revealed this in a statement on Tuesday following a meeting between Egypt’s Petroleum Minister Karim Badawi with German government officials at CERAWeek in Houston.
According to the statement, German aims to buy gas as part of the recently concluded deal between Italy’s Eni and its partner France’s TotalEnergies with Cyprus and Egypt aimed at transporting gas produced from Cypriot fields to Egypt via Egyptian liquefaction facilities.
Discussions also included the Egyptian side’s potential utilization of Germany’s surplus regasification capacities by leasing one of the FSRUs currently operating in the Mukran port on the German Baltic Sea, the statement said.
The two countries agreed to arrange a visit by a delegation of Egyptian specialists to Germany by the end of this month to finalize the contractual terms for the unit’s charter, it said.
The Petroleum Ministry did not provide further details.
Private firm Deutsche ReGas recently announced that it had terminated the charter contract for the FSRU Energos Power, one of the two FSRUs operating at the Mukran LNG import terminal, with the German government.
Energos Infrastructure, a part of US asset manager Apollo, owns this FSRU. According to its AIS data, it was located offshore Mukran on Wednesday.
Besides this unit, the Mukran LNG terminal consists of the 2009-built 145,000-cbm, FSRU Neptune.
This unit is 50 percent owned by Hoegh Evi and sub-chartered by Deutsche ReGas from French energy giant TotalEnergies.
Egypt LNG imports
Recent reports suggested that Egypt has signed a deal to deploy one of Turkiye’s operational FSRUs at Egypt’s Ain Sokhna port to cover LNG demand in June-November.
Egypt shifted from being an LNG exporter to an importer early last year due to declining domestic gas production and rising demand for cooling amid multiple heatwaves.
To support its growing need for natural gas, Egypt currently hosts the 170,000-cbm Hoegh Galleon FSRU at the Sumed port in Ain Sokhna, with a second unit, the 160,000-cbm Energos Eskimo, set to arrive in June.
In December 2024, Egypt’s EGAS signed a deal with US LNG player New Fortress Energy to charter a second FSRU.
This deal is for Energos Eskimo, owned by Energos Infrastructure.
EGAS said the charter of the second FSRU will help secure the growing domestic demand for natural gas, especially during peak summer periods, and aligns with directives to ensure stable electricity supplies from natural gas.
Egypt currently imports LNG via Hoegh Evi’s 170,000-cbm FSRU, Hoegh Galleon, which is located in Ain Sokhna.
In May 2024, Norwegian FSRU player Hoegh LNG confirmed it had signed a deal with Australian Industrial Energy (AIE) and EGAS to deploy the 2019-built FSRU Hoegh Galleon to Egypt.
Hoegh said the agreement with EGAS is for an interim period of June 2024 to February 2026 and will help Egypt to address potential gas shortages and fuel power plants during summer months.