The Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Tarek El Molla, announced that the butane consumption had decreased by 6% in fiscal year (FY) 2019/2020 and it is planned to reach to 6.5% at the end of FY 2020/2021, according to a press release.

He said that during the general assemblies of the companies Petrogas, Petroleum Pipelines, and Cairo Oil Refining to approve the planning budget for FY 2020/2021.

El Molla confirmed that his ministry’s strategy aims to continuously support the butane market through increasing its strategic stock, especially after implementing new butane projects  in some governorates, in parallel with implementing the natural gas grid projects to replace butane with natural gas.

The Head of Petrogas, Raafat Abdel Had, said that they target to fill 3.8 million tons of butane equivalent to 304 million cylinders to fulfill the local market needs.

He added that the planning budget aims to include investments of EGP 163 million to maintain the production and increase its efficiency.

El Molla confirmed the importance of infrastructure to transfer the petroleum products to cope up with the continuing increase of consumption and the national project of transforming Egypt into a gas hub.

He also noted that there are programs are to be established to update oil refineries to be more efficient.