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Algeria’s Sonatrach awards $100 mil pipe deal to foreign firms

23 March 2016 Comments (0) Business, Latest Updates from Reuters, Middle East

ALGIERS (Reuters) – Algeria’s state energy firm Sonatrach has awarded a $100 million contract to supply oil and gas drilling tubes to five foreign firms as part of its drive to increase production, a document seen by Reuters on Tuesday showed.

The companies named in the Sonatrach document are Germany’s CCC Machinery, Dutch firm Van Leeuwen, Vallourec Tubes France, Kurvers Piping France, and High Sealed&Coupled from China.

OPEC member Algeria, which has been hurt by a 70 percent fall in oil prices since mid-2014, is campaigning for more foreign investment to increase oil and gas production to sustain exports and meet growing local demand.

But recent bidding rounds have failed to attract much interest from foreign oil producers.

Sonatrach also said on Tuesday it had made a new oil find with Thailand’s PTTEP and China’s CNOOC following successful drilling in the Hassi Bir Rekaiz area in Algeria.

“This represents 20,000 barrels per day,” a Sonatrach source told Reuters.

Sonatrach holds a 51 percent stake in the project, with the other two companies owning 24.5 percent each.

The state energy company is focusing on developing areas around existing fields and hiking production at its mature fields. It will also invest $3.2 billion over four years to increase pipeline capacity as natural gas output rises from new and existing fields.

 

(By Lamine Chikhi. Editing by Patrick Markey and Susan Thomas)

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Algeria’s Sonatrach to invest $3.2 bil in pipelines

8 March 2016 Comments (0) Business, Latest Updates from Reuters, Middle East

SIDI REZINE, Algeria (Reuters) – Algerian energy company Sonatrach will invest $3.2 billion over four years to increase pipeline capacity as natural gas output rises from new and existing fields, a top company official said on Tuesday.

OPEC member Algeria has been hurt by a 70-percent fall in oil prices since mid-2014. Its revenue from energy fell by half last year, forcing the government trim spending and freeze some infrastructure projects.

But the government, despite struggling to attract foreign oil companies in recent energy bidding rounds, is determined to increase oil and gas production to keep up exports and meet growing local demand.

“Sonatrach will invest $3.2 billion from 2016 to 2020 to boost its transport capacity, including $530 million in 2016,” Arbi Bey Slimane, Sonatrach’s vice president for pipeline transportation, told Reuters at the company’s Sidi Rezine office east of Algiers.

He said the company wanted to guarantee increased supplies to European clients. The additional transport capacity aims to deliver more volume as new fields in southeast and southwest add production soon. He did not give specifics on amounts or timing.

Algeria produces 1.1 million barrels per day of oil, and 27.44 billion cubic metres of gas, according to official figures.

Sonatrach’s CEO Amin Mazouzi has pledged a “sizeable increase in production” in 2016 as Algeria looks to end more than a decade of stagnation in energy production.

“We will build 1,650 km of pipeline, and six compression and pumping stations by 2020. Our goal is to transport output from new fields located in the south east and south west,” Slimane said.

Algeria is in talks with the European Union as the EU looks to diversify its energy sourcing away from Russia, which supplies around 30 percent of the EU’s gas.

Slimane said Algeria would remain a stable gas supplier for southern Europe.

“The volume exported in 2015 increased by 2 million tonnes equivalent oil (TEP) to reach 99 million TEP. The 2 million were delivered to southern Europe,” he said.

 

(By Lamine Chikhi. Editing by Patrick Markey and Jason Neely)

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Building the Foundation of Trust from Below: Amine Mazouzi’s New Position as CEO of Sonatrach

9 July 2015 Comments (0) Leaders

SONATRACH

Amine Mazouzi is one of those lucky individuals for whom changes in large Algerian companies are most beneficial. Mazouzi has recently been named CEO of Sonatrach, Algeria’s state-owned oil and gas company, which operates more than 10,000 gas stations across Algeria and produces 90% of the country’s hydrocarbons. Mazouzi’s new position does not, however, come without complications.

(more…)

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