Led by Alexander Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of Gazprom’s Management Committee, Gazprom’s delegation visited on 29 January the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, holding meetings with Ahmed Ouyahia, Algerian Prime Minister, Mourad Medelci, Co-Chairman of the Russian-Algerian Intergovernmental Commission, Karim Djoudi, Algerian Minister Delegate to the Finance Minister in charge of the financial reform and Youcef Ourradi, Algerian Deputy Minister of Energy and Mining.

The delegation also met with Mohamed Meziane, Chief Executive Officer of the state oil company Sonatrach.

The parties addressed the prospects for the cooperation between Gazprom and Algeria in the oil & gas sector, agreeing to promote large-scale cooperation in the hydrocarbon exploration, extraction, transmission, processing and marketing sectors, with standing joint working groups to be set up for that purpose.

The parties also agreed to shortly prepare and sign a Cooperation Agreement fixing and specifying the accords reached.

Reference:

The second-largest in Africa after Nigeria (5 tcm), Algeria’s proved natural gas reserves account for 4.55 tcm, with the bulk situated in central and eastern parts of the country.

In 2004 Algeria’s natural gas production and consumption stood at 82 bcm and 21.2 bcm, respectively. Algeria piped natural gas to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Tunisia and Slovenia, and exported liquefied natural gas to France, Spain, the USA, Turkey, Belgium, Italy, Greece and South Korea.

The country’s proved oil reserves make up 1.5 bln t (third-largest in Africa after Libya and Nigeria).

The share of natural gas, oil, coal and hydropower in the Algerian energy basket accounts for 62.5, 34.5, 2.5 and 0.5 per cent, respectively.