Algeria imports diesel and gasoline to avoid a crisis on February and March

Series of fires in the refinery of Skikda (eastern Algeria), which isthe largest in Algeria, pushed Sonatrach to announce on aninternational tender to buy quantities of diesel and gasoline to meetthe national needs of February and March.

Sonatrach resorted to launching the tender on two stages, the first

about buying 10 cargoes of gasoline for the coming months, while the

second was postponed to the winter season , hoping to end the works to

repair the refinery which was damaged due to the series of fires

since the beginning of January, but Sonatrach refused to talk about

the incident.

Swiss oil company “Vetol” won the first part of the tnder, while there

were negotiations between “Total” and the company of international

trade “Trafigura” which is based in Netherlands, during the talks to

provide the Algerian company with gasoline.

Since the start of fires which stopped a part of the refinery from

work, Sonatrach rushed to the immediate markets to export quantities

of diesel and gasoline to cover the demand, which caused a rise in the

prices of diesel and gasoline in the Mediterranean region with about

$5 per ton, for shipments that will be delivered before next April.

The price of diesel reached $972 per ton during the recent days in the

Mediterranean, as markets are expected a rise of prices at any new

demand from Algeria, which exported 1.3 million tons of diesel in

2011, of the total annual consumption that reached 9 million tons,

while the imports of gasoline during the same year reached 380.000

tons of gasoline of various types, of the total annual consumption of

3 million tons, with an annual increase of 77% for diesel and 242% for

gasoline.