Africa Energy

In recent years, conventional reserves of fossil fuels such as oil and gas have been steadily dwindling. With renewables not yet sufficiently developed to end dependence on these resources, the world faced a stark choice: either return to more hazardous and more polluting sources such as nuclear and coal, or accept dramatically higher energy prices...

The biggest contract in the history of the Algerian power sector was signed in September 2013 by US multinational General Electric (GE) and Société Algérienne de la Production d’Electricité, the production subsidiary of state-owned Sonelgaz. It provided for delivery of the equivalent of around 70% of the generating capacity Algeria has in place at...

Long-pending and extensive amendments to Algeria’s 2005 Hydrocarbons Law cleared parliament in January 2013 and were passed into law shortly after. The changes were made in part to attract investment into unconventional resources and stoke interest in new bidding offers, following three rounds in recent years that produced disappointing results.

At a press conference in September 2013, Algeria’s minister of energy and mines, Youcef Yousfi, announced that hydrocarbons giant Sonatrach had made some “very important” and “extremely promising” gas finds and that the country’s natural gas reserves were “not falling, but rising”.

In terms of performance and, particularly, potential, Algeria is a major player in hydrocarbons. According to BP’s “Statistical Review of World Energy 2013” (SRWE), it ranked 15th among the world’s oil producers in 2012, with output of almost 1.7m barrels per day (bpd), 1.8% of the global total. Its performance in natural gas ranked it ninth, with...