The Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources has allocated EGP 3.5 billion in the 2018/19 budget to increasing the number of households connected to the natural gas grid, Arab Finance reported.

The ministry of petroleum aims to connect 1.35 million households across Egypt to the natural gas grid during 2018, in a bid to reduce the national rate of butane consumption.

The ministry expects that butane consumption will decrease by 2% each year to reach 3.9 million tons in the 2019/20 financial year, down from 4.

12 million tons in 2017/18.

Egypt’s production of butane is expected to increase by 0.52 million tons to reach 2.6 million tons by 2019/2020. This will mean that the country generates a larger butane surplus of 1.3 million tons.