The Egyptian Parliament has passed a Natural Gas Regulatory Law establishing a regulatory authority for the gas sector in order to attract more private capital in this rapidly growing sector.
This new legislation and the establishment of this authority are meant to facilitate the import and distribution of gas across the country by the private sector, which is expected to take over this activity from the public sector. According to the Ministry of Petroleum, the new regulations will be implemented by the end of September 2017.
Egypt wants to position itself as a regional hub for liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade in the coming years and hopes to become self-sufficient in natural gas by the end of 2018 and a net exporter in 2020. The country's projects have been recently reinforced by a series of major gas discoveries and in particular by the discovery of the 850 bcm Zohr field by Eni in 2015.
Egypt currently has secured the import of 60 LNG cargoes for 2017-2018 and has twelve gas fields worth US$33bn under development, with three large projects (including the Zohr field) expected to start production by 2019.
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