Cabinet spokesperson Mohamed al-Homosany assured that the Egyptian government is hard at work to end the power outage crisis following the end of July.
During a telephone interview with TeN channel on Tuesday, Homosany added that Egypt will import 300,000 tons of diesel worth US$180 million, in order to confront any emergency increases in consumption.
Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly spoke about an urgent plan to provide the fuel necessary for the operation of power plants, he said.
The plan includes providing one billion dollars to import more natural gas, and also working towards ending load-shedding for the remainder of the summer.
The fuel will arrive in batches, he explained, with the first batch to arrive at the beginning of July with the load-shedding period to be reduced to two hours.
Once all batches arrive during the third week of July, power outages will end, he said and assured that following the summer season, the necessary resources will be provided to end load shedding for good.
What happened on Monday regarding a rise in black-out hours was due to a technical malfunction that coincided with a significant increase in electricity consumption, he said.
He pointed out that the Cabinet is working to provide the necessary energy for factories.
The plan also includes ordering all stores to close by 10 pm in order to reduce energy costs, Homosany said, with supermarkets excluded.
