Sonatrach Inaugurates GR6 Pipe
Sonatrach inaugurated a new 536km gas pipeline this week which took just two years to build.
The company’s CEO Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour said May 31 that the GR6 Rhourd Ennous-Hassi R’mel pipeline in the Sahara was built at a cost of dinar 64bn ($590mn) by Algerian contractors. Pipes were supplied by state-owned Alfapipe while construction was undertaken by Cosider and testing by state-owned firm Enact, he told state news agency APS at Hassi Messaoud.
The 48-inch diameter GR6 is intended to pipe gas from fields in southeast Algeria. Sonatrach said in March 2017 that, once complete, GR6 will add 4bn m3/yr of new export capacity.
The Sonatrach chief also visited the gas process plant at Rhourde-Ennous which is being upgraded. Its project manager Yousfi Ryad told APS that its capacity will triple from 16mn m3/d now to its original 48mn m3/d (17.5bn m3/yr) as work is done on its three process trains, two of which are currently operate. Ryad said the work should be completed in February 2019.
Less than a week after the country’s energy minister was replaced, the newly-appointed Sonatrach CEO insisted that his company is “not in a state of crisis” and that investments in the oil and gas sector worldwide had been in decline because of lower prices.
Mark Smedley