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Egypt sees blackouts due to hot weather

Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 9:40 am
by DJKeefy
Fuel quantities in power units supplied by petroleum ministry are not enough to maintain capacity, Egypt's electricity ministry spokesperson says.

Egypt is likely to see some blackouts again as the peak load of the electrical grid nationwide recorded 26,100 megawatts on Monday, which surpassed the daily capacity of the network, the electricity ministry stated on Tuesday, citing the National Energy Control Centre (NECC).

Fuel quantities in the power units that are supplied by the petroleum ministry are not enough. Meanwhile, the NECC had to cut off the power in several areas to save energy and maintain the grid nationwide, spokesman of electricity ministry, Aktham Abu El-Ela, told Ahram Online on Tuesday.

The ministry has attributed the swollen load to the high temperatures that Egypt has experienced over the last two days and expected to remain until Tuesday.

Egypt has received six shipments of fuel from the United Arab Emirates as part of the Gulf state’s promised aid following the removal of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi on 3 July.

The government received last week the first of five free liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments pledged by Qatar in June under the previous government. The shipment reportedly stands at 70 million cubic feet.

"The Qatari natural gas that is going directly to the petroleum foreign partner of Egypt is due to the swap deal under which Egypt will buy the share of foreign companies in locally extracted LNG. The foreign companies will then take the LNG being imported from Qatar," explained Abu El-Ela.

In a similar context, Kuwait has delivered crude oil and diesel worth $200 million to Egypt as part of a $4 billion aid package to bolster the faltering economy.

In early July, the electricity ministry announced Egypt's power grid enjoyed a 300-megawatt power surplus over the past week due to energy-saving measures by the public. Accordingly the amount of natural gas used to produce electricity at the nation's power stations had been reduced by 10 percent to a current 79 million cubic metres per day.

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/78465.aspx

Re: Egypt sees blackouts due to hot weather

Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 11:39 am
by Who2
It's actually one of the coldest summers I've experienced here in Egypt........:cool:

Re: Egypt sees blackouts due to hot weather

Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 2:13 pm
by DJKeefy
It must be all that chilled stella keeping you cool :mrgreen:

Re: Egypt sees blackouts due to hot weather

Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 2:13 pm
by chiddy
Who2 wrote:It's actually one of the coldest summers I've experienced here in Egypt........:cool:
Brrrrrrrh

Re: Egypt sees blackouts due to hot weather

Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 3:01 pm
by carrie
Me too W2 but still started having a couple of power cuts again everyday. Please Keefy let us know when benzine starts to run out again, put your theory to the test.

Re: Egypt sees blackouts due to hot weather

Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 7:50 am
by LivinginLuxor
As cuts happen every year in summer, it's not really news.

Re: Egypt sees blackouts due to hot weather

Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 8:44 am
by Goddess
Just knew someone would say that soon.

Re: Egypt sees blackouts due to hot weather

Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 10:53 am
by Hafiz
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Egypt is short of gas for electricity production. Egypt has been given a lot of gas by Qatar. Egypt is using some or all of this gas to buy out a foreign investor in the Egyptian LNG industry. Following the buy out the Egyptian government will own all the Egyptian LNG company (?). As a result none or only some of this Qatari gas will be used for electricity generation in Egypt either now or at some time in the future..

What happened to using the gas for electricity? Why don't they mention the foreign partner? What is the need to buy them out now? Why waste scarce gas on something that can be done at another time. What's the problem with the foreign investor? Why hand over the gas during the summer?

Why would anyone in their right mind, and after the fall of communism, think that having government directly involved in business is a good thing?