Egypt aims to import between 110 and 120 cargos of liquefied natural gas in 2017, the state-owned Egyptian Natural Gas Holding company (Egas) told Reuters on Sunday.

Separately, three trade sources said Egas had purchased 10 cargoes of LNG from trade house Trafigura and one from PetroChina earlier this month.

Egypt relies to a large extent on LNG to generate electricity for its 90 million people.

Once an energy exporter, Egypt has turned into a net importer because of declining oil and gas production and increasing consumption. It is trying to speed up production at recently discovered reserves to fill its energy gap.

Egypt currently produces about 3.9 bln cubic feet of gas per day and imports about another 1-1.1 bln cubic feet per day. – Reuters