CAIRO - Egypt’s state gas board EGAS said on Monday it is to buy 55 cargoes of liquefied natural gas (LNG), 10 more than originally planned, via a tender it has awarded to seven companies which will deliver the fuel from the start of November. “Head of EGAS Khaled Abdel Badie said that bids from seven companies had been accepted out of a total of 12 for the shipping of 55 cargoes starting this November and through December 2016,” EGAS said in a statement. The cargoes are expected to meet much of Egypt’s near-term energy needs as the government tries to cope with an energy shortage. Falling output and rising demand have turned the country from an oil and gas exporter to net importer and it has emerged as a major new market for LNG. Over the past year, it has agreed major LNG import deals with European commodity trading companies as well as Russian and Algerian oil groups for its first-ever LNG import terminal. Seven companies had been invited to meet with EGAS over the weekend to discuss the tender, including Trafigura, Vitol , Noble Group, EDF Trading, Gas Natural, PetroChina and Shell, trade sources said. The latest batch of cargoes will be delivered into the country’s second floating import terminal, the BW Singapore, which arrived in late September and has a capacity of 600 to 700 million cubic feet per day.