Sonatrach Grabs Majority Share In Medgas Gas Pipeline

Sonatrach, Cepsa and Naturgy have signed an agreement to sell Cepsa’s shares in the Medgas pipeline on Monday (October 14th), the national hydrocarbons company said in a statement issued on Tuesday, October 15th, 2019.
Through this agreement, the statement said, “Sonatrach’s share in Medgas will hike from 43% to 51%. Thus, after the validation of the transaction by the European authorities in charge of competition, “Sonatrach will become its majority shareholder”.
Negotiations for the deal lasted months before it ended with Sonatrach taking 8 per cent of Cepsa’s 42 per cent stake, while the remaining 34 per cent went to Spain’s Naturgy (formerly Natural Gas Fenosa), Ahmed Mazeghi, vice president-general of marketing, told Echorouk. ).
According to Mr Mazeghi, the deal raised Sonatrach’s stake to 51 percent, compared to 49 percent for “Natergy firm”, which makes it controlling the gas facility, which means additional income in favor of Algeria, especially as Medgas directly links Algeria to Spain, and most customers in Spain want to be supply with LNG via this facility.
As a reminder, Medgas is a direct pipeline linking Benisaf in western Algeria to Almeria in Spain. It was commissioned in February 2011 with a capacity of 8 billion m3 per year.
Through this fruitful agreement, Sonatrach will bolster its role as a reliable supplier in the Iberian gas market, the source added.