Zawya: "Mediterranean Gas Motherlode a Mixed Blessing" (Egypt)

When the news broke in late August that Italian gas giant Eni had discovered a "supergiant" natural gas field off Egypt's Mediterranean coast, the whole country seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. 

After sweating through four years of regular blackouts, gas lines and industrial shutdowns caused by fuel shortages, Egypt's euphoric response to the find--heralded as the largest ever in the Mediterranean--was understandable. Then Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab declared that the discovery heralded a "drastic change in the energy dynamics in Egypt." Eni executives added that the new Zohr field, estimated to hold 30 trillion cubic feet of gas, could help satisfy Egypt's gas needs for decades. There were widespread predictions of an imminent economic recovery. One local newspaper even went so far as to wager that the new gas field would propel Egypt to one of the world's top five economies by 2020. 

The discovery of an enormous natural gas field in Egypt's backyard came not a moment too soon. 

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