Page 8 - AfrOil Week 15 2020
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PIPELINES & TRANSPORT
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It noted, though, that this move had strained the company. “[Diesel deliveries] will increase costs and put further pressure on reduced budgets, [owing] to the ongoing disruption of local refin- eries as a result of oil blockades in the country,” it said.
Mustafa Sanalla, the chairman of NOC, crit- icised the parties responsible for the closure of the pipeline. The incident could hamper efforts to rein in the coronavirus (COVID-19) out- break, he asserted.
“At a critical juncture in the fight against COVID-19, some Libyans decided to abuse the situation and starve the capital of electric- ity,” Sanalla said. “This puts more pressure on NOC to import large quantities of fuel, which is especially difficult due to the new restrictions put in place to stop the spread of the disease. This criminal and inhumane closure must end immediately without delay.”
The NOC chief was speaking shortly before the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) announced that it had retaken control of three cities from the Libyan National
Army (LNA), a separatist group loyal to mili- tary commander Khalifa Haftar. On April 13, the GNA reported that it had wrested Surman, Habratha and Al-Ajaylat away from LNA forces. All three cities lie west of Tripoli and are not far from Zawiya, the home of a refinery that NOC took offline in February after Haftar’s allies closed the pipelines that supply it with crude oil.
Libya’s Zawiya refinery has been offline since February (Photo: NOC)
Algeria launches new gas pipeline to ramp up exports
ALGERIA
ALGERIA has commissioned a new pipeline to connect gas fields in its south-west with its main distribution hub at Hassi R’Mel, state-owned Sonatrach said last week.
The 4bn cubic metre per year GR7 pipeline will deliver gas from the Hassi Ba Hamou and Hassi Mouina fields to Hassi R’Mel, from where supplies can be exported to southern Europe. It serves as an extension of the GR5 system, which transports gas from the recently launched Touat, Reggane Nord and Timimoun gas fields to Hassi R’Mel.
“The new pipeline will allow the capacity of Sonatrach’s system Reggane-Hassi R’Mel to reach some 13 bcm per year,” Sonatrach said in a statement. Previously GR5’s capacity was only 9 bcm per year.
In recent years, Sonatrach has prioritised the development of fields in south-west Algeria as well as the infrastructure to bring their gas to market. It began pumping gas from the 4.7 bcm per year Touat field in September last year, where it is partnered with Neptune Energy.
Earlier, the company and partners Total and Cepsa began production from the 1.8 bcm per year Timimoun field in February 2018. The 2.8 bcm per year Reggane Nord field was launched in December 2017.
Both the Hassi Ba Hamou and Hassi Mouina projects have fallen significantly behind
schedule. Sonatrach had initially aimed to bring them into operation by 2018, but both are still several years away from achieving first gas.
Hassi Ba Hamou will comprise three gas treatment and compression units, slated to flow a combined 4 bcm per year.
Norway’s Equinor won a licence for the Hassi Mouina area in 2005 and went on to make sev- eral gas discoveries. However, it later withdrew from the venture, leaving Sonatrach as its sole developer. Development plans indicate the pro- ject could yield 2.8 bcm per year.
Gas can be exported to Europe via Hassi R’Mel (Image: Sunny Hill Energy)
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 15 15•April•2020
