The Damietta LNG plant is on track to finally come out of its eight-year slumber next week: The terminal will export a 150-160k cbm shipment of natural gas during the final week of February, Youm7 reports, citing an oil industry source. The source confirms the timeline laid out last month from Oil Minister Tarek El Molla, who had said that the plant will process some 4.5 mn tonnes of natural gas per year once it goes live. The plant’s first test shipment was scheduled to go out earlier this week, S&P Global had said.

The shipment going out next week will be the plant’s first commercial-scale delivery since late 2012, when it was idled after the government redirected its gas supply to the local market. Operator Eni last year reached an agreement with the government and its former partner Naturgy to settle the eight-year dispute, paving the way for the reopening of the facility.

It comes at a good time: Global demand for natural gas is beginning to pick up following a collapse in prices year caused the covid-19 pandemic, driven by rising demand as the world transitions from oil and coal to cleaner energy including solar, wind and natural gas. Qatar got ink on this subject yesterday, with Bloomberg reporting that the country is committing to an ambitious investment program to make sure that it remains “the world’s biggest producer of liquefied natural gas for at least the next two decades.” Egypt only exported a couple of shipments between March and October as lockdowns around the world caused demand to tank.

ALSO FROM THE WORLD OF ENERGY-

• Siemens Energy and Turboden have begun (pdf) constructing a “first-of-its-kind” high-efficiency gas compressor station at a facility belonging to state-owned natural gas operator GASCO in Dahshour.
• TechnipFMC will carry out work on four subsea wells and install a subsea tie-back to a processing plant for Energean / EGPC’s Abu Qir joint venture, Energean said in a press release (pdf).