Foreign companies blackmail Algeria to revise operation conditions
Petrofac, the international oil and gas service provider stopped works of the In Salah gas compression project as 300 of its workers left Algeria following terrorist attack on natural-gas plant in the south, Echorouk has learnt.
In 2011, Petrofac was awarded US$1.2 billion lump-sum engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract by In Salah Gas (ISG), an association between Sonatrach, BP and Statoil, to develop southern fields in the In Salah development.
Its scope of work includes a new central production and gas gathering facility at In Salah comprising two dehydration trains, with the capacity to produce approximately 16.8 million cubic metres of gas per day, associated permanent camps, and approximately 300km of pipelines for gas collection from the in-field wells and export to the existing Krechba facility.
According to a senior official in oil industry sector, most of foreign oil companies operating in the south asked the government to step up security measures around gas fields.
Western companies like Schlumberger, Total and even Halliburton seized the opportunity of the attack to put pressure on Algeria to benefit from changes to its operation conditions in the south. That would cause more expenses to Sonatrach, the same source told Echorouk.
He added that western oil companies talked about “danger in Algeria” and pushed insurance institutions in London, Paris, Amsterdam and Boston to oblige Algeria to insure direct military protection of oil sites in the south.
“Those western companies are now speaking about pre and post-In Amenas Attack when they evoke Algerian hydrocarbons sector.”
The official said the government satisfied some requests of those companies. Last week, it accepted to ensure security protection for Arcelor Mittal Annaba’s workers and transported some French and Indian employees to Algiers and abroad.
He believes that the “danger in Algeria” classification would have negative financial impact on the State.