Egypt is set to inaugurate a new wharf for natural gas and petroleum product tankers on the Gulf of Suez in the coming days, another step in its plan to become a regional energy hub. The new 2.5 km wharf is being built by SUMED, which for decades has operated two pipelines from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. The wharf will have three berths to receive natural gas and petroleum products carriers. It is due to be completed by the end of the month, Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper quoted SUMED chairman Mohamed Abdel-Hafez as saying. Abdel-Hafez confirmed the remarks in a text message to Reuters. The country has been building fuelling depots for ships along the Suez Canal and expanding its refining capacity. It has an extensive pipeline network and two idle gas liquefaction plants ready to export new gas as it arrives. SUMED, owned 50 percent by the Egyptian government and the rest by Arab oil exporters in the Gulf, is spending $415 million to expand its facilities, mainly at the Red Sea end. It is also building nine 300,000 cubic meter petroleum storage tanks and loading and offloading facilities. The tanks are due to be completed by the end of 2018, Abdel-Hafez said. NBK-Egypt provided $300 million in financing for the project, the bank said in May. The country believes its strategic location straddling the Suez Canal and the land bridge between Asia and Africa and its well developed infrastructure will help turn it a trading and distribution center for countries in the region and beyond. A slew of announcements of new gas production and the expansion of its infrastructure have helped advance the plan. Italy’s Eni (ENI.MI) this month delivered the first gas from Egypt’s giant offshore Zohr field, whose estimated 30 trillion cubic feet (tfc) makes it the biggest gas field in the Mediterranean, and BP (BP.L) delivered the first gas from another offshore field, Atoll, north of Port Said. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government has announced the hub approach part of its energy policy, but still faces logistical and political obstacles to its goal. “By the beginning of 2021, Egypt will be a main regional hub for gas and crude oil,” Petroleum Minister Tarek El Molla told a press conference last month. CHEAP SUPPLY ROUTE Energy analysts say the cheapest way for Egypt’s neighbors to send their gas supplies abroad would be through Egypt’s two unused liquefaction plants, but this is complicated by legal and logistical problems or by financial constraints. “The lack of a political framework between all these countries is still an obstacle,” said Riccardo Fabiani, a Middle East and North Africa analyst at Eurasia Group. Sisi on Nov. 20 also visited Cyprus, where he discussed construction of a pipeline to deliver gas to Egypt from Cyprus’s Aphrodite field, and a delegation representing Israel’s Tamar gas field came to Cairo to discuss possible imports into Egypt. Officials from Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) have also recently held talks with Egypt to discuss investments in oil and gas. One plan now is to reverse the flow on the pipeline to send gas from Israel’s 7 trillion cubic feet Tamar field and the roughly 20 tcf Leviathan field to Egyptian liquefaction plants. But this has been stymied by a dispute over gas that Egypt failed to deliver after 2012. The late-November visit to Cairo by Tamar field negotiators was their second in as many months. The Israelis may prefer to build a new undersea pipeline that would bypass Sinai to avoid sabotage or use a separate pipeline that Egypt has built to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, analysts said. The challenge with Cyprus’s 4.5 tcf Aphrodite field is mainly economic. At current gas prices, it is not big enough to justify an undersea pipeline to Egypt unless more discoveries are made elsewhere in Cyprus, analysts say. Alternative routes for Egypt’s neighbors, such as direct pipelines to Turkey, Greece or Italy, could be prohibitively expensive because of the depth of the seabed. “Egypt is the least bad candidate. And it is also going very fast, which gives it a head start,” Fabiani said.

The spokesperson for Egypt’s New Administrative Capital Khaled Al-Husseini warned citizens of a potential scam surrounding the New Capital, where companies claim to be responsible for booking apartments there. In a phone interview with Hadrat Al-Mowaten, (Your Excellency the Citizin), he said “there are fake ads that are roaming the streets about buying apartments in the New Capital,” and warned citizens against dealing with them.

Egypt s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met on Thursday with his UAE counterpart Sheikh Abdallah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi to discuss coordination on various regional issues and bilateral relations between Egypt and the UAE, a statement by Egypt s foreign ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid said. The two ministers discussed developments in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen and Palestine, as well as the situation in Africa, particularly in the Horn of Africa, as it relates to the security of Arab nations and the Red Sea region.

Minister of Trade and Industry, Tarek Qabil, stated on Thursday that the Egyptian government decided to postpone applying 10 per cent cuts on vehicles imported from the European Union (EU) in early 2018, within the Egyptian-EU partnership agreement. The agreement provides that customs duties on European vehicles shall be reduced annually by 10 per cent with duties completely eliminated in 2019.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will provide Egypt with $200 million to invest in increasing the energy efficiency of the natural gas transport infrastructure, according to a Wednesday statement by the Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation. Minister Sahar Nasr signed the investment agreement with the head of Natural Resources at the EBRD Eric Rasmussen on Wednesday to fund increasing the capacity and energy efficiency of the Dahshur gas compressor station.

Egypt s banks have funded trade finance transactions worth $70.8 billion since the Egyptian pound was floated in November 2016, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) announced Wednesday. By the end of February 2017, the banking system had funded $21 billion in trade finance transactions since the EGP float.

Egypt s Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar told MPs on Monday that with the help of Japan and China, Egypt will be able to launch its first satellite for scientific research in July 2018, meanwhile the House of Representatives approved in a following session a law to establish Egypt s first space agency. Abdel-Ghaffar revealed that 70 percent of the components of Egypt s first satellite will be manufactured locally. “The manufacturing will come in cooperation with China and is expected to be complete in the year 2020,” added Abdel-Ghaffar. Abdel-Ghaffar, who showed MPs a photo and maquette of Egypt s first satellite, said that “the dream has come true, and Egypt is about to join the world s space club in just one year.”

Egyptian writer and renowned leftist journalist Salah Eissa died on Monday at the age of 78 after a struggle with illness. Eissa, dubbed the "storyteller," was one of Egypt s most well-known journalists, documenting the lives of many historical figures, celebrities and Egypt s most notorious serial killers Raya and Sakina. Eissa, born on 4 October 1939 in Daqahliya governorate, was known for being a leftist activist, journalist and historian.

Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry is set to arrive in Ethiopia on Tuesday for talks with his Ethiopian counterpart Workneh Gebeyehu to "break the deadlock" regarding the work of the tripartite technical committee of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, which is studying the effects of construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on downstream countries. The committee will be seeking to reach consensus on ways to avoid harm to all three parties.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has hailed Egypt s economic reforms, which it said have curbed inflation levels, while calling for further reforms, including to energy subsidies. The fund s remarks came as it approved the second review of Egypt s reform programme, disbursing the first part of the second tranche of a $12 billion loan facility, and bringing the total disbursement released to date to just over $6 billion.

Terrorism, irregular migration.. two crucial challenges that need international efforts, and in which both Egypt and the European Union struggle to fight. Being on the same side in the fight against both challenges, Eu commissioner for migration, home affairs and citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos assures the European Union commitment towards Egypt whom the EU consider as a strategic player to achieve peace and security in the region. You have visited Egypt more than once so how does the dialogue between the Egyptian and European sides help in creating a framework to face issues regarding migration and combating terrorism? Egypt is a strategic and crucial partner for the EU on many levels and plays a critical role in the stability and prosperity in the region.

Italian oil and gas company Eni said on Wednesday that it had begun producing gas from Egypt s giant offshore gas field Zohr, the Mediterranean s largest ever gas discovery. The mammoth gas field began production in record time, less than two-and-a-half years since its discovery in 2015, with potential gas reserves of 850bn m3, the company said on its website.

Egypt s defence and interior ministers have returned to Cairo after a visit to North Sinai during which an airport was targeted in a missile attack, the military said in a statement on Wednesday. The military published video footage early on Wednesday morning showing the two ministers stepping off a military aircraft.

Egypt says Arab countries are considering taking the Arab draft resolution on maintaining the status of Jerusalem to the United Nations General Assembly after the US vetoed the resolution at the Security Council on Monday. The failed resolution had demanded US President Donald Trump rescind his 6 December decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

After two days of heated discussion, Egypt s parliament finally approved with a two-thirds majority a government-drafted law on national health insurance on Monday. Minister of Health Ahmed Emadeddin said "the day parliament approved this law should be considered a historic day." "In December 2015, Minister of Finance [Amr El-Garhy] and I received orders from President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to draft a law that should pave the way for implementing a comprehensive national health insurance law in Egypt," Emadeddin said, adding that "today is a historic day as we were able to get the approval of MPs on this landmark law."

Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria reiterated on Sunday their support for the Libyan Political Agreement – signed in Skhirat in December 2015 – as a political solution for the country, just hours after it was declared expired and no longer binding by Gen. Khalifa Hafta, head of the Libyan National Army (LNA). In a joint press statement issued following tripartite talks held in the Tunisian capital on the security and political situation in Libya, Egyptian FM Sameh Shoukry and his two North African counterparts – Tunisian FM Khemaies Jhinaou and Algerian FM Abdel Kader Messahel – said the Skhirat agreement is essential to acheiving a political solution.

The Support Egypt Coalition, a pro-government parliamentary coalition that controls 350 parliament seats, welcomed the visit of the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to Egypt to address the Egyptian people in the House of Representatives. The coalition considered it an opportunity to improve relations between Egypt and Ethiopia regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, while some opposition MPs have refused the visit and continued to collect signatures refusing to receive Desalegn.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi discussed with Italian interior minister Marco Minniti during a meeting in Cairo boosting Egyptian-Italian ties as well as the ongoing probe into the 2016 murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni in Cairo, El-Sisis office said. El-Sisi and Minniti discussed "means to bolster ties between the two countries and exchanged views on international and regional issues of mutual interest," a statement by the Egyptian presidency said.

Egypt President Abdel-Fattah discussed in a Cairo meeting with EU Commissioner for Home and Migration Affairs Dimitris Avramopoulos Egyptian efforts to curb illegal immigration, the presidency said on Saturday. El-Sisi expressed Egypt s desire to reinforce its relations with the EU in different fields, including in efforts to combat illegal immigration.

The Support Egypt Coalition, a pro-government parliamentary coalition that controls 350 parliament seats, welcomed the visit of the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to Egypt to address the Egyptian people in the House of Representatives. The coalition considered it an opportunity to improve relations between Egypt and Ethiopia regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, while some opposition MPs have refused the visit and continued to collect signatures refusing to receive Desalegn.

Egypt s Minister of Petroleum Tarek El-Molla said in a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that extraction in the Zohr gas field, which is set to start in days, will see the country achieve self-sufficiency in the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) before the end of 2018. Egypt was a net exporter of LNG until 2014. However, it turned into a net importer in recent years due to a declining output and power shortages amid political turmoil.