Egypt seals deal with Gazprom to import 35 cargoes of LNG

Egyptian gas company EGAS has sealed a deal to import 35 cargoes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia's Gazprom over five years, state news agency MENA reported on Tuesday.

The deal stipulates that Gazprom starts delivering the shipments in the second half of this year.

EGAS has already signed deals to import 55 cargoes of LNG through 2015 and 2016, according to MENA. Global Trafigura is set to deliver 33 LNG cargoes, Vitol Group deliver nine shipments, Noble Clean Fuels to send seven cargoes and Algeria Sonatrach to ship six cargoes, added MENA.

Egypt has suffered from an energy crunch since 2008, most evident in the summer as the hot weather leads to higher consumption of electricity, an issue the government has promised to solve before this summer.

Egypt finalised a long-delayed deal in November with Norway's Hoegh LNG for a floating storage and re-gasification unit that allows it to begin LNG imports.