Ahead of an investment conference and the nation’s current electricity crisis, Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly says the government will import other fuels worth $1 billion in addition to the $180 million worth of mazut. He announced this during a press conference on Tuesday reiterating the load shedding process will continue till the end of the week.
Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli has clarified, to stop electricity cuts in summer from the third week of July until September, the government will import other fuels worth $1 billion in addition to the $180 million worth of mazut.
He announced the prescribed measure in a press conference on the electricity crisis affirming that Egypt did not have a problem with power generation or transmission, highlighting how the government intends to address the power crisis. He noted that Egypt is connected to neighboring countries with a grid that enables the import and export of natural gas.
The premier alluded the worsening electricity crisis on Monday to a gas field in one of the neighboring states that got out of service for 24 hours. Thus, the duration of electricity cuts had to be prolonged to be three hours instead of two per day as the government could not risk emptying the grid from all gas as that could engender a domino effect causing all power plants to stop working.
To prevent the recurrence of the crisis in case of similar emergencies and in the face of heatwaves expected in July and August, the government says it will raise its reserves of fuel consumed by power plants by 300,000 tons of mazut worth $180M and whose delivery will begin next week.
Nonetheless, Madbouli pledged commitment to set a plan for avoiding the resumption of power cuts in September until the end of the year.
