Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El Molla has directed to work on increasing the number of converted cars to run on natural gas to 100,000 cars per year during 2023 as well as to accelerate the completion of the new gas stations and start operation.

This came during his chairing of the periodical meeting to follow up on the expansion plan of using natural gas as car fuel. The meeting was attended by several chairmen and leaders who are working in this regard.

The minister affirmed that the expansion plan for the natural gas supply stations led to doubling the numbers of the stations four times over the country during the last two years. He added that 700 new stations were established to achieve an unprecedented increase reaching a total number of 909 stations.

The meeting also witnessed a presentation about the intensive efforts during the past months to put the new stations into operation. It also tackled the positive development indications for using natural gas as fuel during the last years. The indications demonstrated an increase in the monthly average for the converted vehicles to about 6,700 in 2022 which rose by 187% compared to a monthly average of conversion in 2019 recording 3,562 cars.

Additionally, the monthly average natural gas sales as a fuel for cars increased to about 95 million cubic meters of gas (mmcm) during 2022, as a reflection of the citizens’ desire to use natural gas, which saved about 88,000 tons of liquid fuel (gasoline and diesel) per month as a result of replacing it with gas, equals to more than 1 million tons of fuels saved annually. This is compared to the monthly average of gas sales in 2019 which reached about 46 mmcm of gas saving 37,000 tons of liquid fuel.

Also, the average sales of gas as fuel for cars in the local market increased during January 2023 to a record rate of 109 mmcm, which indicates an increase in the rates of conversion of cars and the continued growth of citizens’ demand. Moreover, the number of centers that provide car conversion service to gas increased to about 130 centers by the end of 2022, compared to about 70 centers in 2019 recording an increase of 82%.

It is noteworthy that the petroleum sector has completed the establishment of 124 new natural gas supply and 15 centers for their conversion during 2022 in addition to the conversion of about 80,000 cars to gas, targeting the establishment of 100 -120 stations and 45 conversion centers during 2023 at an unprecedented rate to provide fast and special service for car owners who want to convert to natural gas.