Sonatrach to Unveil New Strategy: CEO
Sonatrach has begun the drawing up of a new strategy out to 2030, entitled "Project SH2030," said CEO Abdelmoumen Ould Keddour September 18.
Repsol meanwhile has told NGW that start-up of its Reggane Nord development is just months away.
The Sonatrach CEO's strategy announcement came on a visit to the Rhourd El Baguel gasfield, 80km from Hassi Messaoud in southern Algeria. Ould Keddour said Sonatrach is now working on the details of this medium to long-term strategy which would be revealed once complete, according to state news agency APS. It would cover gas, oil and renewable energy production. Sonatrach is in talks with Eni and Total on partnerships spanning all three types of investment.
According to Reuters, the CEO also disclosed he is talking to the government about attracting more investment and about the need to change Algeria's existing fiscal and exploration framework.
Algeria's former energy minister Noureddine Boutarfa said in April he was looking to adjust the fiscal regime but one month later was out of a job. Ould Keddour was appointed Sonatrach CEO shortly afterwards.
Sonatrach has been struggling to arrest a long-term decline in gas production for export. The CEO’s visit to Rhourd el Baguel was to open a new facility to curb gas flaring which, according to APS, took just 40 days to install and has reduced the field’s flaring by 17mn m3/d (6.2bn m3/yr), of which 6mn m3/d (2.2bn m3/yr) is redirected for export; the other 11mn m3/d is reinjected to raise pressure and improve production. Earlier this month the CEO announced a separate initiative to produce 10mn m3/d (3.65bn m3/yr) sales gas for the first time from the Hassi Messaoud oilfield, starting November.
Reggane to start "at turn of the year"
Sonatrach last week said that the Repsol-operated $3bn Reggane Nord gas development would start producing before the end of 2017, although experts had previously said it is unlikely to start up before 2018.
Repsol though told NGW September 19 that Reggane Nord "will start at the turn of the year." The development is expected to produce 2.9bn m³/yr at plateau from six fields.
Sonatrach hones in on Spain, Italy
Algeria did managed to improve gas exports last year, according to data from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2017. Exports by pipeline increased from 26.3bn m3 in 2015 to 37.1bn m3 in 2016 as Sonatrach honed in on relatively firm prices for gas in Spain and Italy; its global LNG exports were scaled back from 16.6bn m3 in 2015 to 15.9bn m3 last year (both expressed in natural gas equivalent).
The same BP Stats show that Algerian sales gas production reached 91.3bn m3 in 2016, up from a low of 79.6bn m3 in 2009 but only 84.6bn m3 in 2015. Production from recent expansions by BP should be joined, within not so many months, by Repsol's Reggane Nord development.
Algeria's gas consumption, according to the same BP Stats, reached 40bn m3 in 2016, from 39.4bn m3 in 2015, and 27.2bn m3 in 2009.
Mark Smedley