Egypt, Qatar Deepen Energy Ties With New LNG Deal

9 Jan 2026 Issue: 69 / 2 By: Peter Stevenson

QatarEnergy will supply Cairo with 24 LNG cargoes this summer to help plug a growing gas deficit. Separately, the Qatari state company’s footprint in Egypt’s Mediterranean offshore region continues to expand.

Cairo has moved to secure its LNG needs for the summer, providing an alternative to Israeli pipeline supplies that were interrupted on multiple occasions last year. Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum announced on 4 January, that Egypt and Qatar had signed “an MoU in Energy and Natural Gas Domains.”

Egypt’s domestic gas production, which averaged 4.20bn cfd last year, has fallen precipitously since peaking at 7.19bn cfd in September 2021, prompting a two-track approach by Cairo to secure imports. Israeli pipeline supplies form the low-cost baseload of the import mix and last year’s 880mn cfd accounted for around 45% of the total. LNG imports are typically priced at near double Israeli piped gas at around $10-11/mn Btu, but provide Egypt with strategic optionality even if the US supplied more than 90% of volumes last year (MEES, 2 January). (CONTINUED - 815 WORDS)