Egypt and Its Energy Diversification Efforts
Egypt is a major gas producer in North Africa and the Middle-East with strengthened efforts to ramp up its renewable energy sources. Being the most populous country in the region, Egypt aims to maintain energy security by diversifying energy sources as evident in its Integrated Sustainable Energy Strategy (ISES) to 2035.
To give us insights on Egypt’s energy diversification efforts, we invited our Egypt partner and energy veteran Hossam El Dandarawy for an interview.
(This interview was first published on TechnologyCatalogue.com. Click the full interview here.)
How would you describe the overall direction of Egypt’s energy sector? How do you see the energy mix changing in the coming years?
The Energy Sector in Egypt is mostly dependent on hydrocarbon energy generation, but is now also much more diversified with the introduction of large scale solar power projects and the upcoming prospect of nuclear power not far away.
I see that hydrocarbon energy will continue to play a huge role in Egypt’s energy sector and economy for the foreseeable future — certainly in areas like commercial aviation where there is no realistic substitute and now also with increased LNG exports to Europe and some areas in the Middle East.
However, renewables such as Solar are expected to take up a larger market share in the coming years with the availability of such high output projects like Benban (targeting over 1,600MW) and favourable sunny weather most of the year.
Another strong addition to the renewables portfolio in Egypt are Wind Farms in areas such as Ras Ghareb and Za’farana (targeting over 500MW). Egypt is also hosting COP27 in Sham El Sheikh later in November 2022.
This year’s EGYPS was announced to tackle how the oil and gas sector can be more sustainable. What do you think should be the sector’s priorities to make it more sustainable?
I think that a sustainable Oil & Gas sector is very high on Egypt’s agenda at the moment and this is already a very wide topic with plenty of lateral focus on a daily basis. Some of the ideas already gaining momentum include improving supply chain, improving public environmental awareness (especially in marine operations) and developing a national strategy through growth and technology (improving efficiency from end to end and reducing fugitive emissions, GHG reductions and CO2 capture).
There are also other catalysts within the hydrocarbon industry such as more efficient project execution, smarter field development, digitization (especially post covid-19) and the government’s own modernization agenda which is steadily transforming Local Oil & Gas entities.
Read the entire interview here.
