Egypt to bear $50 million repair cost for Damietta vessel
Egypt will bear the full $50 million repair cost for the regasification vessel Energos Winter following a fire at Damietta Port about two months ago, an official source at the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) revealed.
Maintenance work on the vessel is currently underway in Spain. Once completed, the ship will return to Egypt to receive and regasify imported LNG shipments to cover domestic demand.
The source, who requested anonymity, said the company carrying out the repairs informed EGAS last week that the work will take about a month. This timeline puts the vessel on track to return to Egypt and enter service in November, subject to technical, operational, and safety tests in Spain to ensure the efficiency of its regasification equipment and operating systems before it is gradually brought back online in Egyptian waters.
Coinciding with the halt of the Energos Winter, EGAS redirected five LNG shipments scheduled for October to other destinations and regasification units, according to the source. Some cargoes were sent to Jordan, while others were allocated to the Hoegh Galleon and Energos Eskimo regasification vessels operating in the Ain Sokhna area.
He added that the Ministry of Petroleum’s plans to import LNG shipments aim to maintain the stability of local market supplies by utilizing the full capacities of the regasification vessels currently present in Egyptian territorial waters.
The Ministry of Petroleum began expanding the leasing of regasification units in 2024, coinciding with gas supply disruptions during the Israeli assault on Gaza. Although leasing a single vessel costs between $7 million and $9 million per month, the ministry will bear the full charter fees for Energos Winter for August, September and October, despite the ship remaining out of service.
Egypt relies on LNG imports to bridge part of the gap between local production and market needs, after production dropped to about 3.8 billion cubic feet per day this year, compared to around 4.1 billion cubic feet per day last year.
The decline in local production coincided with a rise in the cost of energy imports, as Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said in March that the value of Egypt’s monthly natural gas imports surged from about $560 million to $1.65 billion.
Reports first emerged in July of a fire aboard two ships at Damietta Port, specifically the US-owned Energos Winter and the GasLog Salem. The government subsequently confirmed the blaze was caused by a drone strike for which no group has claimed responsibility. While the perpetrator remains unidentified, analyses warn the incident could drag Egypt into the months-long US-Iranian war.