Egypt Rethinks Pricing

摘要

Egyptian authorities have reopened pricing negotiations on a series of new and existing gas projects with foreign partners, providing hope among the latter that worsening gas shortages have forced a serious rethink of the price that Cairo will pay for gas production. Foreign operators have long complained that Egypt's standard cap of $2.65 per million Btu is too low to develop difficult fields, but the government has been unwilling to yield. That has left major gas discoveries, mainly in the deep offshore Mediterranean, stranded at a time when Egypt is struggling to provide enough gas for its local market, let alone sustain LNG exports. However in recent talks, state-owned Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Co. (Egas) has expressed a renewed willingness to hike prices on a number of upstream gas projects, several industry officials told WGI in Cairo last week.