Sonatrach’s CEO sends experts to Hassi Messaoud to investigate suspicious deals

Echorouk’s reports about investigation on deals between Algeria’s energy group Sonatrach and foreign companies raised panic among the chiefs of the group’s subsidiaries.

• Chiefs of the Entreprise nationale des Travaux aux Puits (ENTP), the Entreprise Nationale de Géophysique (E.NA.GEO) and NAFTOGAZ held a meeting to prepare a comprehensive dossier about Echorouk’s reports, said a senior official.
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• NAFTOGAZ’s CEO held a general assembly last week and warned workers who wrote unsigned letters to Sonatrach’s CEO and gave copies to the press. The workers responded saying they want to know the truth about deals sealed between the administration and finance director and a company owned by his cousin.
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• The same source said Sonatrach’s CEO Nourredine Cherrouati will assign experts in Hassi Messaoud to review all the transactions conducted in 2003-2009. Of them, deals signed between Boumerdes oil institute and foreign institutes upon a personal request from former energy minister. He was about to dismiss an official at the Algerian Oil Institute as he refused to sign illegal deals including Mercure and Royal hotels management contracts. The minister could not do that because he was excluded from the ministry following the last reshuffle. Subsidiaries chiefs hope that Sonatrach’s new CEO will not open investigation into those deals.