Sonatrach gearing up for marketing refined oil instead of crude

The Algerian government is in the process of adopting new measures to address the damaging oil crisis that is intensifying by leaps and bounds on a daily basis.

In so doing, the Government intends to market refined oil instead of crude in a bid to shore up Algeria’s oil revenues and thus curtail the country’s imports of gasoline and diesel.

The imports of refined products cost the Public Treasury more than two billion dollars annually, a figure that is considered by experts as “disastrous” for a leading energy producer.

The move was announced by Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal after his encounter Thursday in Algiers with his visiting Maltese counterpart, Joseph Muscat.

Mr Sellal evoked in this connection the projected partnerships between Algeria’s  hydrocarbon Company Sonatrach and foreign energy firms in the field of oil refining in a bid to exploit the country’s resources in an optimal way, by creating added value.

“In the energy sector, it is possible that there will be a partnership between Sonatrach and a Maltese Company, adding that if this partnership proves to be successful, it will cover the refining of Algerian oil and its future marketing in Malta itself”, he said.

“We won’t back down on our vision to diversify the national economy and we have no other option but to create wealth and to develop our natural resources by creating added value,” Mr Sellal contended.

Furthermore, the Algerian Premier stressed that the 2016 Finance Act is an austerity-oriented finance law meant to live up to the challenges now facing Algeria, while highlighting the extent of the myriad challenges  in the offing.