As 2020 draws to a close, we’re running a recap of our Hardhat Year in Review issues.

In part 1, we look at how covid-driven supply-chain disruptions and price volatility impacted energy, construction and shipping — and how they bounced back.

Part 2 looks at how infrastructure development had to adapt to the turbulence this year through digitization and diversification — from the rise of digital services and payments to the development of the smart grid, the government’s plan to transition to natgas cars, and the emergence of green bonds as the testing ground for our debt diversification strategy.

Your top infrastructure stories for the week:

• Enara Energy has signed an agreement with Chinese PV solar panel maker Chint Electric to develop a sand-to-cell PV panel factory in Egypt. The project looks likely to be a revival of the Armed Forces’ USD 2 bn integrated solar panel factory, for which talks broke down over two years ago.
• The government plans to generate 300 MW of electricity from waste-to-energy (WtE) projects by 2025, with tenders for WtE plants to be issued to the private sector by the electricity and environment ministries under a Build-Own-Operate framework.
• The Oil Ministry intends to bring Egypt’s total number of natgas filling stations to 550 by 2021, as part of its push for car owners to switch to natgas and dual fuel engines.
• The Transport Ministry is in talks with the World Bank for two loans worth a combined USD 400 mn for a planned railway upgrade project. One USD 200 mn package would finance the transition to an electric railway signaling system in the Giza-Beni Sueif line, and the other another would finance upgrades to the railway tracks and control system for the line.
• The Suez Canal is extending through 1 June 2021 its incentive scheme that sees LNG carriers traveling between the US and SouthEast Asia receiving 30-75% off their transit fees. This follows an earlier announcement that transit fees for large oil tankers traveling between northern Europe and southeast Asia will be slashed by 48%.