Algeria’s In Amenas T3 to Restart Soon: Statoil

Gas process train 3 at In Amenas gas plant in Algeria has been repaired and will soon be restarted, Norway’s Statoil has told Natural Gas Europe. Train 3 was badly damaged in an attack on the complex by Islamist militants in January 2013, in which 40 staff were killed, and has been shut since.

Each of the 3 trains has roughly 3bn m³/yr process capacity, which means the 9bn m³/yr complex once fully operational again will account for 10% of Algeria’s annual marketed gas production. In Amenas is jointly operated by Algerian state owned Sonatrach, together with BP and Statoil.

A Statoil spokesman noted: “Train 3 will not add new production before new compressors are completed towards the end of this year.” The company said its average daily equity production from In Amenas in Q2 2016 was 16,700 barrels oil equivalent/day. Statoil’s share is 45.9%, which suggests that In Amenas gross 2Q production (at 100%) was 36,385 boe/d.

Statoil’s account tallies with what the head of In Amenas told Algerian state news agency APS on July 23. Sonatrach incorrectly forecast earlier this year that train 3 would restart in April 2016; on that occasion Statoil declined to confirm the timeline.

Statoil out of Hassi Mouina 

Statoil meanwhile has confirmed that it no longer has equity in Hassi Mouina, one of three fields in the Sahara that will be connected to the country’s gas infrastructure system once the GR7 pipeline is built by 2019-20.

The Hassi Mouina field in which Statoil became 75% operator in 2004 and made at least 4 gas discoveries but which it has since relinquished

The Hassi Mouina exploration licence expired in September 2012, Statoil told NGE on August 2, with the process of relinquishment begun in 2014. It said the licence was not declared commercial. NGE enquired because Statoil’s website still listed the field among its interests on August 1.

Shell this week confirmed to NGE that its subsidiary BG in 2013 relinquished Hassi Ba Hamou, another of the three fields to be connected by GR7. Total pulled out of the other field, Ahnet, in 2014.

All three Algerian fields are now understood to be Sonatrach-operated.

Mark Smedley