The Algerian state group Sonatrach announced on Thursday the signing of a contract worth nearly 400 million euros with the Italian company Tecnimont for an LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) extraction plant in the Algerian Sahara.
The plant will help develop the Rhourde El Bagel hydrocarbon field in Hassi Messaoud in Ouargla prefecture in southeastern Algeria, Sonatrach said in a statement.
“The projected processing capacity of this plant is 10 million m3/d of associated gas, allowing the production of 1,000 tons/d of LPG, 300 tons/d of condensate and 8.7 million m3 / d of gas, for a completion period of 36 months”, according to the press release.
In addition, within the framework of the development of hydrocarbons at the level of the gas fields of Tin Fouiyé Tabenkort in the prefecture of Illizi (south-east), a second contract for an amount of 24 billion dinars (170.9 million euros ) was signed between the TFT Group (SONATRACH-Total Energies) and the Italian company ARKAD.
This second contract concerns the construction of a new low-pressure compression unit, a collection network allowing the connection of 24 new producing wells to the existing plant, as well as the overhaul of the current installations.
This project, which will take 34 months to complete, will enable the gas production plateau to be maintained at 11 million m 3.
Algeria, whose proven reserves of natural gas amount to almost 2,400 billion m 3, supplies around 11% of the gas consumed in Europe, against 47% for Russia. It is the leading African exporter of natural gas and the 7th in the world.
Several countries, especially European ones, seeking to reduce their dependence on Russian deliveries since the invasion of Ukraine has turned to Algeria, but experts have questioned the North African country’s ability to increase production in the short term. term.
