Algeria's Touat Gaz 'at Completion Stage'

Spanish contractor Tecnidas Reunidas (TR) said, in 3Q results November 13, that the firm is at the completion stage of "very large projects in our backlog with an aggregate value of more than $7bn."

Among them, its CEO Juan Llado listed the $1bn Touat Gaz natural gas plant project – a development for a consortium of Neptune Energy as operator with 35%, state Sonatrach 35% and France's Engie 30%. The project will produce 4.5bn m³/yr gas and 630,000 barrels of condensates, according to Carlyle-backed Neptune which now expects first gas during the first half of next year. 

The Touat project was originally due to start up in 2016 but delayed several times. Algeria's state news agency APS then reported it would start up early 2018 but that too proved optimistic.

TR's Llado listed the Gasco gas process project for Abu Dhabi state Adnoc ($0.7bn) as well as major oil refineries for Petronas, Socar (in both Azerbaijan and Turkey) and Saudi Aramco as among the other projects adding up to $7bn now at the completion stage. He added that TR is now launching two different refining projects for Aramco and Socar and ones in Bahrain and Oman, plus $1.9bn of contracts from Adnoc – $860mn for Das Island gas processing, and the rest for the Bu Hasa oil project – that add up to $8bn. TR's profit margin however turned wafer-thin.

TR's net nine-month 2018 profit from continuing operations was just €5.9mn ($7mn), down 89% from its 9M2017 profit of €56mn, and a decline in its margin to 0.2% in the first nine months of the year, down from 1.4% in the same period last year.