Three Arab countries, led by Algeria, experienced growth in exploration activities.
Algeria dominates the ranking of Arab and African countries in gas and oil exploration. This is what reports the monthly flash of the American company Baker Hughes which has counted the exploration platforms in activity and in cessation in the Middle East and in Africa as well. Unlike the Middle East where the number of rigs has been reduced, the Africa region has seen a multiplication in the number of these oil and gas structures.
In March, three Arab countries, led by Algeria, followed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, experienced growth in exploration activities with, at the peak, an increase in the number of drilling platforms. gas and oil exploration. Four other Arab countries have not seen any investment in this framework, like the Sultanate of Oman. According to the Baker Huges report, oil and gas exploration activity increased in Algeria, with the setting up of two new platforms during the month of March, increasing the number of platforms -Exploration rigs to 33.
According to the same report, Algeria’s oil production rose for the second consecutive month since the start of 2023. For Qatar, the number of rigs is increased from 12 to 14 units during the same month, according to the same report. Indeed, from 327, the number of gas and oil platforms in the Middle East increased to 323 platforms, during the past month. On the other hand, in Africa oil and gas platforms have gone from 97 to 100 platforms, with an increase of three new units.
The Sultanate of Oman is at the head of the Arab countries which have experienced a significant drop in the number of oil and gas platforms, dropping from 50 to 45 units only, including 41 for oil exploration alone. The report does not shed any further light on the reasons and conditions for this reduction in investment in this booming sector. Also in Libya, oil rigs have seen a drop in rigs, the number of which fell from 12 to 8 rigs, all for oil exploration.
Ditto in the United Arab Emirates, where oil and gas rigs fell to 52 rigs in Abu Dhabi in March. While the number of such platforms has increased in Saudi Arabia, with two additional units bringing their overall number to 78, in Iraq, Kuwait and Egypt the situation seems to be experiencing some stability. Also in Tunisia, the drilling rigs did not exceed the threshold of two units, the report further notes. Paradoxically, the number of investments in oil and gas drilling and exploration around the world seems to have slowed down with a reduction of around 42 platforms bringing the number of these to 1,879 as of March 2023, especially in Canada and the USA.
According to another report, oil and gas deals in North Africa, including Egypt, Algeria and Libya are on the radar of energy giants. Along with this situation, reports from specialized global sites, including the Forum of Gas Exporting Countries, reveal new peaks, for the year 2023, in terms of world imports of liquefied gas. The recovery of the Chinese economy and the growing European demand to compensate for the decline in Russian gas pipeline supplies, are behind this increase in global demand. According to the Baker Huges report, these increases in global LNG imports should peak at 4.5% during 2023, for an overall volume of 416 million tonnes. According to the same specialists, we are far from the thresholds before the Covid-19 pandemic where volumes were around 10 to 12% between 2018 and 2019. As for 2022, the growth rate of world LNG imports was similar to that of 2021, i.e. around 6%.
