Egypt has a natural gas problem. For years, the North African country produced a surplus of natural gas, but domestic consumption has surpassed production. Increased consumption was fueled by a rapidly growing population and by generous government subsidies. From 2009 to 2012, consumption rose 24 percent while production declined by 3 percent. The Egyptian Petroleum Ministry believes that by July 1 natural gas consumption will exceed production at a rate of 1.74 billion cubic meters per year. This has left Egypt looking for import agreements. For a while, Cairo received some liquefied natural gas shipments from Qatar , which was the lone member of the Gulf Cooperation Council to support the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. But when the Muslim Brotherhood was removed from power, Egyptian-Qatari relations soured, and Doha later stopped sending shipments. With insufficient aid from Gulf states, Egypt has only two unattractive options to resolve its natural gas problem.