(Bloomberg) -- Egypt indicated it’s ready to rejoin the club of major exporters of liquefied natural gas, making its biggest offer to supply the market in at least five years.

The state gas company EGAS tendered to sell four cargoes of LNG for loading in April, people with direct knowledge of the matter said. The bids are due March 18 and valid until March 25, according to the people, who asked not to be named because details of the process are confidential. The company is also marketing four cargoes for loading in May and three for June, people said.

Extra supplies from Egypt would hit a market already battling with the lowest spot prices for the super-chilled fuel since July 2017 following a mild winter that curbed demand across Europe and Asia. The U.S., Russia and Australia all are contributing to a glut, starting new plants to export the fuel and build market share.

READ MORE: Egypt’s Potential Gas Surplus Could Feed Global LNG Glut

For Egypt, the tender marks a revitalizing of its gas industry, where sagging domestic production forced it to halt most exports of LNG in 2014. The North African nation has regained self-sufficiency with the help of major discoveries including the super-giant Zohr gas field.

LNG is exported from the Damietta and Idku plants, which were largely left idle five years ago.

Egypt became a major consumer of the fuel in 2015, using its regasification and import units to take in cargoes. Purchases that once were as large as 120 cargoes a year stopped in 2018 as flows increased from the Zohr field, setting the stage for a resumption of exports.

(Updates with details of May-June offers in second paragraph.)

To contact the reporters on this story: Stephen Stapczynski in Singapore at sstapczynsk1@bloomberg.net;Anna Shiryaevskaya in London at ashiryaevska@bloomberg.net;Salma El Wardany in Cairo at selwardany@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net, Alexander Kwiatkowski, Dan Murtaugh

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