The state-owned Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (Egas) has stopped pumping gas to 60 per cent of the country’s high-consumption industrial plants as hot weather prompts a surge in demand for electricity.

Power stations have increased their consumption to 3.2 billion cubic feet of gas a day due to increasingly hot weather, according to Egypt Daily News, which cited an anonymous Egas official.

Among the facilities that have seen gas supplies cut are steel plants and fertiliser factories.

Egypt sees an increase in demand for electricity every summer as the country ramps up usage of air conditioning.

Over the summer months of 2014 Cairo saw rolling blackouts due to high demand for electricity and a shortage of natural gas.

Egypt recently started to import natural gas through a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal but is still struggling to meet demand after years of declining domestic production.