Algerian exports literally plunged during the first two months of 2021, according to data relayed by the official Algerian Press Service (PS) agency. A fall that confirms the heavy downward trend and which shatters the myth of the oil country.
Cherif Belmihoub had shocked the Algerians when last February, as Minister of Economic Projections, had affirmed that “the current economic situation of the country is so serious that Algeria could cease to be an exporter of crude by next ten years”. Words that his counterpart in charge of Energy, Abdelmadjid Attar, was quick to deny, who did not hesitate to say that such projections emanated from “false experts”.
However, the dispatch from the APS which has just fallen is yet another confirmation of the decline in Algerian oil production. During the first two months of the year, Algeria exported only 4.3 billion dollars, including 3.9 billion of hydrocarbons, against 5.6 billion over the same period in 2020.
This means that overall exports fell 23.7% while those of oil and gas, which represent 90.70% of the total. Fell by 25.86% in January and February 2021, compared to these two months in 2020.
The Algerian authorities may deny the obvious, the sad reality of the programed end of the oil and gas windfall resurfaces.
We can no longer count the reports that sound the alarm bells on this fact and the dangers that this represents for a country whose sole source of income is and remain oil. In March 2017, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that Algerian oil production then of 1.14 million barrels/day (mb/d) would increase to 1.05 mb/d in 2022. C’ is unfortunately for the country of North Africa, the heavy tendency since 2007, the year during which it had reached a peak of 1.38 mb/d.
Last February, to deny the forecasts of his counterpart in charge of Economic Projections, the Minister of Petroleum did not even realize that the figures, which they exposed, also showed the drop in production. Without specifying the period, he said in great detail that “ Algiers exported 677,000 barrels of crude oil per day, 80,000 barrels of condensate per day, and 180,000 barrels of LPG per day. In sum, the total volume exported by Algeria is 937,000 barrels/ day”. This level if of course lower than the pessimistic forecasts that the IEA formulated in 2017.
Sonatrach, for its part, is fully aware that the phenomenon is irreversible, although it is struggling to reduce its speed and therefore delay as much as possible the year when no more drop of oil will be exported. However, it is sorely lacking in financial resources, because the more oil windfall dries up, the more it needs to invest, but the less money it has to do so.
Thus, the investment plan, which has been lying dormant for several years, is to inject some 73 billion dollars to improve the yield of existing fields. While trying to discover new ones. The current level of production clearly shows that these cookie-cutter solutions, planned for the Hassi- Messaoud and Rhourde El-Baguel sites, have not been implanted and if they have been, they are appalling infective.
Today, when the other countries of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are fighting to increase their quotas, the situation is such that Algeria is no longer able to meet these same quotas of production. Indeed while OPEC authorized it to produce up to 1.05 million barrels/day, Algeria could not exceed 878,000 during the month of February, due to lack of capacity, according to the news site which quotes the OPEC report.
Obviously, in these times of severe economic crises turned social, the Algerian regime did not need such news.
