One of Egypt’s largest fertilizer companies, Abu Qir Fertilizers, announced on Thursday that it would partially switch to hydrogen supplies due to a natural gas shortage causing widespread blackouts in the country.
This move comes after Abu Qir Fertilizers and three other major companies in the fertilizer and chemicals sector—Mopco, Sidi Kerir Petrochemicals, and KIMA—halted production earlier this week because of the natural gas shortfall, Reuters reported.
The production halts coincide with worsening blackouts that Egyptians have faced since last year. The outages are due to a surge in summer power consumption and the ongoing gas shortage.
Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly attributed the gas shortage to a production halt in a neighboring country, presumably Israel, and pressures on dollar resources.
Madbouly announced on Tuesday that Egypt would spend over $1 billion to import enough gas and Mazut fuel oil to end the blackouts this summer.
To help meet the high summer demand, the country has awarded its biggest tender in years on Wednesday to buy 20 cargoes of liquefied natural gas (LNG), according to sources cited by Reuters.
This tender, announced earlier this month, might be part of the plan Prime Minister Madbouly mentioned.
This week’s plant closures mark the second time chemical and fertilizer companies have had to shut down this month.
The first shutdowns occurred after the government temporarily reduced gas supplies to these plants.
However, Sidi Kerir Petrochemicals announced in a stock exchange release on Thursday that its gas supply had resumed and its plants would restart the same day.
