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Friday, February 11, 2022
Algeria’s Sonatrach Group signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) under which it will resume its activities in Libya, suspended since 2011, the date of the outbreak of the civil crisis in the country.
This signature comes within the framework of a visit of an important delegation of Sonatrach to Libya. Initialed by the CEO of the Group, Toufik Hakkar and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of NOC, Mustafa Sanalla, the MoU mainly addressed the return of Sonatrach to activity in Libya, by fulfilling its contractual obligations in the Ghadames basin contract areas 65 and 96/95.
“Our goal is to resume activity quickly and start developing the discovered fields,” Mr. Hakkar said during the signing ceremony. “Through this agreement, we want to define a future vision to prepare development plans for the fields discovered in the two areas in Ghadames,” he added.
This agreement will also make it possible to strengthen cooperation in the areas of the realization of oil and gas projects, as well as services and training.
During this visit to Tripoli, the CEO of Sonatrach was accompanied by the general managers of subsidiary companies specializing in geophysics, drilling works, major oil works, well services, pipeline transport, civil engineering and construction.
On this occasion, Mr. Hakkar presented to NOC officials an overview of the Sonatrach Group and the capacities of its subsidiaries in the field of oil services, highlighting “their competence and proven know-how.”
In this context, he underlined the readiness of the Algerians to develop twinned programs with the subsidiaries of the NOC and to create joint companies in research and exploration, drilling works, rehabilitation and maintenance of installations, training, as well as civil engineering and construction.
For his part, after giving an overview of the oil activity in his country, Mr. Sanalla welcomed Sonatrach’s decision to resume activity in Libya as an “important” partner in the field of energy and assured of its firm desire to support the Algerian subsidiaries in the oil services market in Libya.
Sanalla added that the NOC relies on Algerian expertise and invites it to contribute to the reform of infrastructure and oil transmission lines, rehabilitating and building reservoirs, and added that Libya and Algeria are rich in great potentials of oil and gas, which gives good opportunities for investment. Sanalla also stressed the importance of the geographical location of the two countries, which enables them to enhance energy stability in the Mediterranean and Europe in light of the crisis that Europe is witnessing in the provision of gas. NOC seeks to put Libya’s gas discoveries, specifically in the Hamada region, on production.
The two parties have agreed to prepare partnership programs in various fields such as geophysics, geology, drilling, welding and inspection. To that end, Sonatrach’s subsidiary companies and the NOC also held a series of bilateral meetings that will contribute to preparing the ground for the return of Sonatrach to complete its contractual obligations, and to resume its exploration and production activities in Libya previously suspended due to the previous deteriorating security situation in the country.
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