The Egyptian government is accelerating its efforts to lower natural gas imports. It plans to reduce its imports of natural gas to 80 cargoes worth, an estimated decrease of 32.2%, by the end of fiscal year 2017/2018, reports Reuters.

“We were planning to import 154 cargoes of LNG in fiscal year 2016/2017 but we only imported 118 cargoes because of the increase in local gas production,” Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Tarek El Molla stated, Al Ahram Online reports.

Egypt expects its natural gas production to rise to 6.2 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) from 5.2 bcf/d–a 19% increase in output–by the end of fiscal year (fy) 2017/2018, according to Reuters.

In early August, Egypt had received 129,000 tons of LNG from Russia’s Rosneft in 2017, according to TASS. The Russian firm has agreed to supply Egypt with 600,000 tons of LNG between May and October 2017.