The Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources announced this in a statement on Thursday following a meeting between Badawi and Kobos at CERAWeek in Houston.
According to the statement, the two sides discussed potential cooperation in technology and expertise transfer in the field of LNG
Also, the meeting explored opportunities for cooperation through the provision of floating storage and regasification units, in light of Excelerate Energy’s large fleet of such units, which supports the Ministry’s goals to secure natural gas supplies for the local market.
Kobos expressed his keenness to provide the required FSRUs to Egypt, the statement said.
Excelerate operates ten FSRUs, one of the world’s largest fleets of such vessels, and these units are located worldwide.
Some FSRUs are located in Finland, Brazil, Dubai, Pakistan, while one FSRU will also start serving the second FSRU-based LNG import terminal in Germany’s Wilhelmshaven later this year.
In addition to these 10 FSRUs, Excelerate also ordered one 174,000-cbm FSRU at South Korea’s HD Hyundai Heavy Industries in 2022.
In addition to providing FSRUs, Kobos expressed his aspirations to cooperate with the petroleum sector in LNG trading, especially in light of the recently concluded deal between Italy’s Eni and its partner France’s TotalEnergies with Cyprus and Egypt aimed at transporting gas produced from Cypriot fields to Egypt via Egyptian liquefaction facilities, according to the statement.
Badawi also met with German government officials during the same event in Houston, the Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
German aims to buy gas as part of the recently concluded deal between Eni and TotalEnergies with Cypurus and Egypt.
Discussions also included the Egyptian side’s potential utilization of Germany’s surplus regasification capacities by leasing one of the FSRUs currently operating in the Mukran port on the German Baltic Sea, the statement said.
The two countries agreed to arrange a visit by a delegation of Egyptian specialists to Germany by the end of this month to finalize the contractual terms for the unit’s charter, it said.
Egypt plans to sub-charter the 174,000-cbm FSRU Energos Power, which previously worked at the Mukran LNG terminal, from the German government.
Private firm Deutsche ReGas recently announced that it had terminated the charter contract for the FSRU Energos Power, one of the two FSRUs operating at the Mukran LNG import terminal, with the German government.
Energos Infrastructure, a part of US asset manager Apollo, owns this FSRU.
Egypt shifted from being an LNG exporter to an importer early last year due to declining domestic gas production and rising demand for cooling amid multiple heatwaves.
To support its growing need for natural gas, Egypt currently hosts the 170,000-cbm Hoegh Galleon FSRU at the Sumed port in Ain Sokhna, with a second unit, the 160,000-cbm Energos Eskimo, set to arrive in June.
