Page 9 - AfrOil Week 07 2021

AfrOil PERFORMANCE AfrOil

Other potential projects are Senegal’s 10mn tpy “Such projects now depend on their devel-
Yakaar-Teranga and Mauritania’s 10mn tpy Bir opers’ ability to optimise cost and find new syn-
Allah-Orca LNG facilities, and an expansion at ergies, especially when it comes to brownfield
Mozambique LNG to 42mn tpy. expansion plans,” ACTING said. ™

Algeria’s energy minister counters media

reports of falling hydrocarbon exports

ALGERIA ALGERIAN Energy Minister Abdelmadjid barrels per day of crude oil, 80,000 bpd of con-
Attar has countered reeports that the country’s densate and 180,000 bpd of gasoline on average
hydrocarbon exports dropped by 290,000 bar- last year.
rels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) last year. Separately, the minister told to the assembly
Speaking at a parliamentary session, he that Algeria subsidy policy allowed domestic
explained that media sources had focused on consumers to benefit from paying for natural gas
crude oil exports rather than aggregate crude at a rate that was only 10% of the average price in
and petroleum products. He asserted that other countries.
exports of oil and refined fuels stood at 937,000 This situation has contributed to the cre-
boepd and 40bn cubic metres of natural gas ation of financial imbalances at Sonatrach,
in 2020, generating a total income of $20.2bn the monopoly national natural gas producer,
divided as follows: $13.2bn for oil and $7bn for distributor and exporter, he noted. These
natural gas. imbalances need to be urgently addressed by
The minister also declared that the North rechannelling the subsidy towards the most vul-
African country had exported some 677,000 nerable segments of society, he commented. ™

POLICY
GNA orders payment of all PFG wages

LIBYA LIBYA’S Government of National Accord because they had been paid. GNA confirmed
(GNA) said last week that it had ordered the PFG’s statement on February 11, saying that the
payment of all overdue wages to members of the Defence Ministry’s decree called for all overdue
Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG). According wages to be paid.
to Argus Media, the order took the form of a These developments should pave the way for
decree from GNA’s Ministry of Defence. the re-opening of the Marsa el-Hariga terminal,
In theory, this move should help end the which handles crude produced by Arabian Gulf
strike that PFG members at the Es Sider, Marsa Oil Co. (AGOCO), a subsidiary of National Oil
el-Hariga and Ras Lanuf oil terminals launched Corp. (NOC).
on January 24, citing Tripoli’s failure to pay most
of the salaries they were due for work in 2020.
The strike disrupted a number of tanker load-
ings, but most guards at Ras Lanuf and Es Sider
backed down earlier this month.
They did so after discussions with GNA’s
Finance Ministry, Argus Media noted. Those
talks ended with the ministry promising to pay
November and December wages by the end
of March and agreeing to revise the terms of
employment for some PFG contractors.
Most of the guards from Ras Lanuf and Es
Sider were willing to accept these terms. How-
ever, PFG’s Marsa el-Hariga contingent held out
for a longer time, announcing only on Febru-
ary 10 that they were ready to lift the blockade PFG members began striking in January (Photo: The Libya Observer)

Week 07 17•February•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P9