New Sonatrach’s CEO stops foreign intervention on Algerian oil rigs

The number of engineers and managers that left the national hydrocarbons company “ Sonatrach” over the period 2001-2009 has reached 882 a confidential report has revealed.

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• This situation has forced the company to call on various foreign companies to manage its oil rigs including the US “Schlumberger” and “Halliburton” for the first since 1963. This report was kept secret by the former managers that took part to the worst mismanagement of the first Algerian company since its creation.
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• The first wave of drain –brain started in 2001 when 145 skilled managers left the company towards the Gulf countries most them with at least 15 years of experience behind. These engineers were either supervising the operations for the other Algerian companies or foreign ones including the US, Italian and Chinese.
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• The aftermaths of this haemorrhage were disastrous for Sonatrach and compelled it to contract out with foreign engineers from “Schlumberger” and “Halliburton” despite their relatively small experience in the field in comparison to their Algerian counterparts.
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• These companies took advantage of the lack of skilled engineers that were pushed by the former minister Chakib Khellil to leave the country because of his stubbornness to keep their salaries low, to applying prices 10 or 12 times higher than those asked by the Algerian companies for the same operations.
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• The Algerian engineers were holding the “ IWCF” degree that enabled them to work in any petroleum company in the world, while the former managers have decided to bring foreign engineers from Egypt, Pakistan, India and Vietnam to supervise the drilling operations.
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• One of the emergency measures decided by the newly appointed General Manager, Noureddine Cherrouati consists in forbidding the renewal of the contracts sealed by the former company’s directorate with these foreign companies that cost millions of US dollars.
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• The other decision taken by the new manager was to stop the project of relocation of the city of Hassi Messaoud staunchly advocated by the former minister Chakib Khellil, after discovering the real drives behind this move.