Khaberni - Egypt has allocated about $10.7 billion to secure its needs for natural gas and LBNG during the fiscal year 2026-2027, through a mix of shipments and supplies.
A government official explained that the gas will be specially sourced from Israeli fields in the Eastern Mediterranean, noting that the gas import bill for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins in July, will increase by about $2.2 billion compared to estimates for the current fiscal year, which is expected to reach $8.5 billion by the end of June, reflecting an increase of about 26%.
Egypt imports natural gas from Israel through the "Tamar" and "Leviathan" fields in its gaseous form via pipelines, making it relatively less expensive compared to importing LNG from the global markets.
The official attributed this increase to the rise in global prices affected by geopolitical tensions, where the cost of a single LNG shipment jumped from about $40 million to around $60 million, in addition to the gas pricing from the "Tamar" and "Leviathan" fields being linked to a pricing formula associated with global oil and gas prices.
This comes at a time when the quantities of Israeli gas supplied to Egypt currently exceed pre-Gaza war levels, where they rose by 15% on a monthly basis in January to record about 1.15 billion cubic feet per day, supporting the country's ability suffering from a shortage of dollar liquidity to increase its exports and secure a portion of the hard currency.
