Egypt's Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources has ordered that the newly drilled Nasim-1X well in the Taiba concession be connected to the national grid within a single week, ministry officials said on Friday, and that every household and factory from Alexandria to Aswan receive gas from it before the weekend.
To meet the deadline, the ministry has requisitioned all available pipe-laying crews in the country and placed them under a rotating schedule that keeps trenches open day and night. Residents of Port Said reported that their streets were dug up on Thursday, filled in on Friday and dug up again by Saturday morning. A ministry spokesman described the schedule as "a demonstration of national commitment, not a sign of disorder."
The ministry has also instructed every bakery, hospital kitchen and school canteen to switch its ovens to the new supply the moment the first valve opens. Officials confirmed that a second pipeline, planned at about 22 kilometres, will be extended in both directions simultaneously until it meets the existing Abu Madi to El Gamil line. "We are not waiting for the arithmetic to catch up with us," one senior engineer said, "we are simply laying more pipe than the sand can hold."
Eni and Woodside, the operating partners in the concession, have been asked to dispatch their own drilling teams to every governorate to test for further deposits, a request the companies have not yet answered. Petrobel, which carried out the work on the well, has been ordered to name a new head drill for each of the country's 27 governorates. Cairo's markets have already begun pricing gas stoves at a premium, and a queue of citizens wishing to be the first household connected has formed outside the ministry's headquarters.