Egypt shipped 80% of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to Europe last year, the country’s petroleum minister, Tarek Al-Molla, said on Monday.

Al-Molla’s comments came as the European Union (EU) expects Egypt to increase the volumes of its LNG deliveries to Europe.

On Monday, EU commissioner for energy, Kadri Simson, said on the sidelines of an energy conference in Cairo that the Union expects a framework deal between the bloc, Israel and Egypt to allow Egypt to maintain “relatively high volumes” of liquefied natural gas (LNG) deliveries to Europe.

The MoU was signed last June with the aim of boosting exports of Israeli gas transported by pipeline to liquefaction plants on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, before being shipped to Europe.

Al-Molla earlier said that Egypt’s LNG exports were expected to reach 7.5 million tons this year, in line with 2022 volumes.

Since prices and European demand surged due to the war in Ukraine, Egypt has been trying to save gas for export to ease an acute dollar shortage.

Officials have said that any significant expansion in export capacity under the deal with the EU and Israel will take time.

On Monday, Simson told Reuters, “Now we have to solve some of the bottleneck issues. We do expect that, with the help of this MoU, Egypt can keep the relatively high volumes of LNG that it delivered to Europe last year.”

Asked about LNG volumes that could be exported under the MoU, Simson said: “It depends on national decisions. Of course Israel is the one that has to decide – what are the volumes they are willing to export.”

She added: “We see that there is spare capacity in liquefaction facilities here in Egypt, but exact volumes were not part of our memorandum of understanding.”

Meanwhile, Al-Molla attended on Monday the signing ceremony of five memorandums of understanding and cooperation agreements between the petroleum sector and major global energy and technology companies to boost bilateral cooperation in the fields of reducing carbon emissions, digital transformation, supporting sustainability and crude oil marketing.

The agreements were signed on the sidelines of the 6th edition of the Egypt Petroleum Show (EGYPS 2023).

A memorandum of understanding was signed between Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources and Chevron Corporation to cooperate in capacity-building and exchange the best practices for low-carbon projects, including those related to controlling methane emissions.

Also, the Ministry signed an MoU for a consulting services provided by the international company IBM, specialized in digital transformation and sustainability.

An agreement was signed between the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) and Apache Corporation in Egypt (Khalda Petroleum Company and Qarun Petroleum Company) to export Egyptian crude to the international market.

Two memorandums of understanding were also signed by the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF), the International Energy Forum (IEF) and the Mediterranean Energy Observatory.