Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website

MB MP requests ending of gas exports to Israel to accommodate Egypt 's demands

Egypt's current recurring of power outages is blamed on insufficient natural gas at many power plants.

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Egypt's current recurring of power outages is blamed on insufficient natural gas at many power plants. According to sources Egypt 's natural gas consumption has grown sharply in recent years, more than doubling between 2004 and 2010. The blackouts are a result of Egypt 's gas sales to Israel where approximately one third of its gas is exported under a 2005 agreement

Muslim Brotherhood MP Dr. Hamdi Hassan submitted a question to Egypt 's Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif asking him to investigate the power outages. He suggested that he stop gas exports to Israel in order to provide additional power at home. According to sources the country's government is hoping to repurchase more than one billion cubic meters of natural gas sold to Israel to help quell the problem

The minister of energy in turn is pleading with citizens in Egypt to cut back their electricity usage during the current heat wave Nevertheless, Power consumption has escalated as summer temperatures have reached up to 40 degrees

Egypt’s electricity ministry however vowed on Thursday to tackle power outages that economists believe could restrict investment. Officials in Egypt 's Petroleum Ministry had initiated earlier this year the suggestion of importing natural gas from Iraq for use in its gas liquefaction facility in Damietta , and this in turn would be used to turn the Iraqi natural gas into liquid gas for resale. However the notion raised controversy, and opponents of gas exports to Israel called on the government to cancel the sales rather than import it