Egypt’s mineral resources sector seeks to connect natural gas to three million housing units in light of the medium-term sustainable development strategy (2018/19-2021/22), according to an infographic published by the Planning Ministry on its official Facebook page. The sector aims to diversify the energy mix to include natural gas by 44 percent, petroleum products by 39 percent, coal by nine percent and renewable energy by eight percent by fiscal year 2020/21. It also targets enhancing the capacity of refineries by 10 percent to reach 41 million tons a year in addition to completing nine projects to develop refineries with investments of $8.3 billion. The Ministry pointed out that the sector further aims to increase production of petroleum products by some 5.8 billion tons a year and implement programs for rationalizing energy consumption in the petroleum sector, which will save some four billion dollars annually. Egypt’s crude oil output increased to 657 thousand barrels per day (bpd) from 630 thousand in 2017, according to Chief Executive Officer of the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) Eng. Abed Ez Erijal. As part of Egypts bid to become a major energy hub in the region, IEOC General Manager Fabio Cavanna said his company aims to raise production of Zohr field, the largest gas discovery ever made in Egypt and in the Mediterranean Sea, to two billion cubic feet per day by the end of 2018. Cavanna said his company targets raising production to reach 1.2 billion cubic feet (bcfd) in May 2018, two bcfd by end 2018 and the production plateau (2.7 bcfd) in 2019. Zohr gas field, which was discovered by Eni in 2015, includes reserves of about 30 trillion cubic feet of gas. It will help Egypt overcome the severe shortage of energy supplies and save the country billions of dollars of hard currency it would have spent on imports. Egyptian Oil Minister Tariq Al-Mulla said that the cost of subsidizing fuel in his country amounted to 84 billion pounds ($ 4.73 billion) in the first nine months of the current fiscal year 2017-2018, which ends on June 30. The cost of supporting petroleum products rose by 7.7 percent, compared with 78 billion pounds in the same period last fiscal year. Egypt has raised the price of oil products twice in a period of time not exceeding one year, the last was in June. Estimated oil subsidies in the 2017-2018 budget are about 110 billion pounds, while in the next fiscal year Egypt will target some 89 billion pounds.