Algeria Has New Energy Minister

Noureddine Bouterfa, CEO of Algerian state utility and generator Sonelgaz from 2004 until last week, has become the country’s new energy minister. He replaces Salah Khebri, who leaves government after just one year in office. Bouterfa took office on June 12, one day after a government reshuffle.

Algeria's new energy minister Noureddine Bouterfa (Photo credit: portail.cder.dz)

Both Khebri and Bouterfa recently acknowledged that Algeria’s state enterprises will need to borrow to continue investing. However Khebri claimed in April 2016 that the country’s oil and gas production would rise to 4.82mn boe/d in 2020, thanks to forecast $73.5bn of investment between now and then. Given that investor interest and production have been declining, Khebri at times seemed disconnected from the realities of Algeria’s upstream.

Bouterfa earlier this month said that talks with foreign lenders to Sonelgaz had begun; he has courted multilateral banks also about possible financing of Algeria’s renewable energy projects and may also favour raising domestic energy prices in order to restrain runaway gas demand in Algeria. In April 2015 he called for an increase in Sonelgaz prices, against a prevailing government view then that they should remain heavily subsidised.

Finance minister Abderrahmane Benkhalfa was also replaced by Hadji Baba Ammi, deputy finance minister since mid-2014, according to a June 11 presidential communique relayed by state news agency APS. A new post, junior minister for digital economy and modernisation of financial systems, was conferred on Boudiaf Mouatassem.

Mark Smedley