Egypt's Power Plants Switch to Fuel Oil After Damietta Attack

A drone attack on two vessels at the Damietta port in Egypt has led to a shortage of natural gas for power plants, causing them to switch to fuel oil to maintain electricity output. The attack, which occurred last week and was described by the government as a 'drone attack' without any party claiming responsibility, resulted in a fire on board the Energos Winter, a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage and regasification unit, and GasLog Salem, an LNG carrier.

According to a source at the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS), conventional power plants currently consume 3.65 billion cubic feet of gas per day, down from 3.7 billion in August last year due to the attack. To offset the lost gas supply, power plants have nearly tripled their fuel oil consumption to around 30,000 tons per day compared with pre-attack levels.

The source explained that power plants rely mainly on domestic gas for their operations, obtaining about 65% of their natural gas from domestic production and around 35% from imports. The petroleum ministry has expanded its leasing of regasification units since 2024 to maintain regular gas flows following repeated disruptions to Israeli gas imports.

The ministry will seek to supply more gas to the plants over the coming days by regasifying supplies at units moored in Jordan, which is expected to yield around 19.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas that will be pumped to Egypt throughout August. This move aims to reduce reliance on fuel oil and minimize the impact of the attack on power generation.