CAIRO – Recently, returning home from a restaurant in central Cairo, where he works late, Ahmed Ali took a double take:
Tahrir Square, home to the famous Egyptian Museum and the many revolutions, was almost completely dark.
Usually, there was a golden light.
But that night, practically, its only illumination came from the red subway stop.
Had there been a blackout?
Ali asked his fellow bartenders.
“No,” they said.
In August, in the height of the Egyptian summer, the government ordered government offices, stadiums, hotels and shopping centers to turn off the air conditioning and lights to save energy.
Natural gas savings would be sold to Europe at a high markup, helping Egypt resist economic hurricane and Europe to survive the energy crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“The more we export to Europe, the more electricity shortages we will have here,” said Ali, 21.
“It’s a good thing for Europe, but it’s not very good for us.”
However, for the Cairo government, a Europe that suddenly needs natural gas it is a very good thing.
And even though Egypt hosts the United Nations annual conference on fighting climate change, known as COP27This week, the sale of fossil fuels was a top priority.
Critics have questioned Egypt’s suitability to host the summit due to other aspects of its environmental record, including poor emission reduction targets and huge infrastructure projects who are destroying green spaces in Cairo and sucking water from the Nile, which is already under pressure, its main source of water.
But gas is in the spotlight.
While Egypt is desperate for cash as the aftermath of the war in Ukraine affects its indebted economy, Europe is desperate for natural gas after rejecting Russian energy due to the war.
It enters Egypt and its two gas liquefaction export plants, just across the Mediterranean from Europe.
Since Egypt began pumping from the massive Mediterranean natural gas field known as Zohr in 2017, the country has sought to position itself as a major energy hub.
By January it hopes to sell $ 1 billion worth of natural gas a month, some of its own, some imported and liquefied for re-export.
A direct gas pipeline from the southern Mediterranean to Europe is impractical, experts say.
This means that natural gas pumped from other parts of the region must first go to Egypt for liquefaction before being re-exported to Northern Europe by ship.
“The financial situation we are in has put us in a ridiculous position, cutting power to the Egyptians to sell it to Europeans,” said Ahmed El Droubi, head of regional campaigns for the Middle East at green peace.
But for Egypt, the benefits of positioning itself as an energy hub go beyond the financial ones.
Egypt already uses its geopolitical influence on two other important issues, the illegal immigration and terrorismto whom he promised that Europe will help to counter.
Energy has given him a new card to play against the West’s reproaches for his history human rights.
Egypt is also benefiting from LNG shipments passing through the Suez Canal, on which the government recently raised tariffs, said Richard Probst, Egyptian representative of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, a German Social Democratic political foundation.
“With Europe in need, not many will back down,” he said.
The European Parliament voted in July to label the natural gas as a “green” fuel, opening the door to an avalanche of new investments.
Western energy companies are concluding gas deals with African governments to supply Europe.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyensaid a June agreement between Israel and Egypt exporting a steady flow of natural gas to Europe “would contribute to the energy security of our EU”.
Egypt has rejected warnings from climate experts that no new gas fields should be opened if the world is to have the ability to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to experts at the level needed to prevent the worst impacts. of climate change.
Egyptian Oil Minister Tarek el-Molla recently called gas “the cleanest hydrocarbon fuel”, saying it will continue to play a key role in the energy mix.
But environmental groups warn that gas investments are at risk enclose developing countries in decades of dependence on fossil fuels.
“Instead of putting these big, really expensive investments into dead end projects, they should switch to clean energy projects” that would ultimately cost far less than fossil fuels, said Rachel Cleetus, director of climate and energy policy at the Union of Concerned. Scientists.
“But the richer countries are unable to move their fingers,” he added.
They are also expanding investment in fossil fuels.
“And it’s a much more difficult challenge for low-income countries to make that transition.”
There are, however, serious doubts as to whether Egypt can continue to meet its gas needs, let alone Europe’s.
“Talking about Egypt’s ability to supply gas in abundance to Europe is, for lack of a better word, a myth,” said Peter Stevenson, editor of the Eastern Mediterranean at MEES, an oil and gas analysis company.
Even if the two Egyptian LNG plants were running at full capacity, they would only be able to export around eleven % than Europe got from Russia, assuming Europe can afford every drop of Egyptian gas, most of which goes to the world’s highest bidder.
But the plants performed well below capacity, indicating a deeper problem:
despite the unexpected gains of the gas field in the Mediterranean, Egypt almost no surplus of own gas to sell.
Domestic energy demand has increased by nearly 35% since 2015, fueled by a rapidly growing population, while gas production has steadily declined since last fall, also thanks to overexploitation.
To close the gap and free up more gas to sell, Egypt is fueling some of its power plants mazuta low-quality fuel that burns dirtier and shortens the life of plants, said Mohamed El Sobki, a professor of energy engineering at Cairo University.
Thanks to mazut, the Egyptian electricity sector has started emitting carbon dioxide at much higher rates.
“This is really a double-edged sword,” El Sobki said.
“We are raising the economic outlook for natural gas, but we are also doing it harming the environment“.
Egypt managed to export two shipments of LNG to Europe in August after increasing gas imports from Israel and burning more mazut at home.
Without such measures, however, Egypt would have had nothing to sell and would even risk blackouts, Stevenson said.
Ordering electricity cuts in mid-August, when domestic demand typically peaks, may also have helped.
But the rush to turn Egypt into a gas hub appears to have distracted attention from its huge clean energy potential, which needs more investment and better government regulation, analysts say.
Despite its vast deserts, windy shores and year-round sunshine, only 4.9% of Egypt’s energy came from renewable sources in the last fiscal year, well below its 2022 target for the year. 2022.
The Climate Action Tracker assesses Egypt’s emissions reduction commitments, which until recently did not even include a numerical target, as “highly insufficient”.
Some energy experts agree with Egypt that gas can play a crucial role in keeping the lights on and heating homes as the world moves towards clean energy, provided that fossil fuel investments are swiftly withdrawn. .
In the long run, they say, Egypt is geographically well positioned to export clean energy from the renewable-rich Middle East to Europe.
As some African countries have pointed out, Egypt and other developing countries can hardly be blamed for trying to profit when rich nations they got rich first with fossil fuels.
There is a “growing tension between developed and developing countries that will be on full display” at the climate conference, said Jason Bordoff, co-founder dean of the Columbia Climate School.
“Low-income countries say, ‘We didn’t cause the problem, but you’re asking us not to industrialize in the same way as developed countries.'”
Ahead of the climate conference, Egypt’s clean energy investment has rebounded and the president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi recently stated that green projects now account for around 40% of total public investment.
Egypt plans to unveil a national strategy to be implemented green hydrogen, a clean but energy-intensive fuel produced from renewable sources, at the top.
For now, gas is king.
El-Sissi was supposed to meet von der Leyen of the European Commission at the summit, but the meeting was later canceled.
On the agenda: gas for Europe.
c.2022 The New York Times Company
Source: Clarin
