‘Egypt sees new Israel gas deal soon’ -Ynetnews
Ghorab said Egypt’s proven natural gas reserves stood at 77.5 trillion cubic feet (2.19 trillion cubic meters), the paper said. That figure is little changed from the 77.2 trillion cubic feet given by the government in June 2009.
Al Ahram said Ghorab would present a paper to Egypt’s supreme energy council proposing to cut energy subsidies for industries.
Subsidies, mainly for energy, accounted for more than a quarter of total spending in Egypt’s 2010/11 budget. The government is grappling with an economic slowdown and rising costs after the uprising.
If I’m reading this correctly, and Egypt is about to let market forces completely determine the price of natural gas, going Milton Friedman, then the transition from high regulation to deregulation will cause a….shock… to the society. It’s not like the shock that they just experienced. In the long term, this may not be a bad thing. But that initial shock is pretty severe.