Egypt has sent out its second liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipment this year with 60,000 metric tons cargo heading to Niigata, Japan, and it will be received by Tohoku Electric Power Company in July, under a short term contract, reported Bloomberg. The first LNG from Egypt was shipped to India in late March.
The last time Japan, the world’s biggest LNG buyer, imported LNG from Egypt was in 2014.
The country was once a net LNG exporter from 2005 until 2014 and then turned into one of the world’s newest major LNG importers due to its economic instability, before starting exporting the fuel again. “If Egypt could return to its previous position as a major exporter, and that is a big and longer-term ‘if’, it would make a material difference to the world’s future supply-demand balance,” Hellenic Shipping News quoted James Taverner, a Tokyo-based analyst for IHS Inc. as saying.
According to a report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Egypt’s LNG import demand is forecast to increase in 2016 and then fall again in 2018. The country will finally become self-sufficient again from 2022.
