Abdelmoumen ould Kaddour was arrested this Saturday, March 20, 2021, in the United Arab Emirates. The former CEO of Sonatrach was subject to an international arrest warrant.
The former CEO of Sonatrach, Abdelmoumen ould Kaddour, was arrested this Saturday, March 20, 2021 in the United Arab Emirates. According to algerie360, he was arrested at Dubai airport from Paris.
This arrest follows the international arrest warrant issued against him. He is accused in the Augusta refinery buyout case in Italy, which turned out to be a very bad investment and even a financial pit for Sonatrach.
The Prime Minister announced last February that an investigation had been opened and that an international arrest warrant had been issued against the main accused without the name of the former CEO being explicitly named. However, everyone knew who it was.
Recall that this 70-year-old refinery, acquired in 2018 from Esso Italiana, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, was to allow Sonatrach to refine part of its oil and limit imports of fuel by Algeria.
Sonatrach became the owner of the refinery for $ 725 million, but was forced to borrow an additional $ 250 million to make repairs and finance the working capital of this old refinery. An operation however much criticized from the start by many Algerian experts.
The worst part is that this unit was never really operational because it works with heavy crude, unlike that produced by Algeria. As a result, its products did not meet the required standards. Moreover, the refinery is behind the scandal of poor quality fuel exported to Lebanon in 2019, which is behind the imprisonment of the Sonatrach subsidiary in Beirut.
Because of this failure, Algeria continued to import fuel and refined products.
Ould Kaddour was spending a golden retreat between France and the United Arab Emirates. Last February, the news site Media Part claimed that the ex-CEO of Sonatrach, based in Marseille, had obtained a two-year employment contract with the American oil and gas company Exxon Mobil.
