Sonatrach Admits Delay in Touat Project
First production from the major Touat upstream gas project in southwest Algeria is officially not expected to begin until 1Q2018.
State news agency APS cited Sonatrach CEO Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour saying this October 26. He attributed the delay to the operator’s shortcomings in terms of project management. Some experts though had anticipated such a delay long ago. Currently, of the 21 wells to be drilled across 9 or 10 fields in the 1,300 km² area, just 3 are ready to produce, he said. Sonatrach and Engie are joint partners in the Touat operation.
Back in 2016, an Oxford Institute for Energy Studies report by Algeria expert Ali Aissaoui estimated that the 4.6bn m3/yr project, originally planned to start up that year, would slip into 2018. Indeed during August 2016, the Touat project was blockaded for a week by locals, calling for jobs.
“I acknowledge that our business in the deep south is very difficult, very complex, but definitely we need to improve our efficiency. We are always late and we must learn from these delays so that the coming generations don’t commit the same mistakes,” said Ould Kaddour visiting the site this week.
Touat is one of five oil and gas projects that Sonatrach planned to develop in 2015-2019: they include the In Salah expansion (planned peak of 14.1mn m3/d), Bir Sbaa (20,000 b/d), Reggane (8mn m3/d), Touat itself (12.8mn m3 and 630,000 barrels of condensate per day) and Timimoun (4.6mn m3/d).
Ould Kaddour said that Sonatrach could by the end of this year ramp up its gas production to 95 billion m3/yr, out of which 53bn for export and 42bn for the growing local gas market. Algeria is Africa’s leading gas producer and its oil and gas exports contributes to 60% of the State budget.
Olivier de Souza