State-owned Sonatrach announces discovery of three oil and gas fields in southern Algeria

Algeria’s state-owned oil company Sonatrach has announced having discovered three new oil and gas fields in the south of the country, including one in collaboration with Italy’s Eni.

“Sonatrach announces to have made two discoveries, two of gas in own efforts and one of oil in collaboration with Eni,” the company said in a statement posted on its website.

Thus, it has detailed that the first of the gas discoveries was carried out in the Illizi Basin, in the framework of the search perimeter ‘In Amenas 2’, with a daily flow during the tests of 300,000 cubic meters of gas from a first deposit of 213,000 cubic meters of gas per day.

“The second discovery was carried out by Sonatrach and its partner Eni following the drilling of the exploration well “Rhurde Ulad Yemaa Ouest-1” (RODW-1), in the ‘Sif Fatima 2’ research perimeter, located in the northern region of the Berkine Basin.

In this regard, the company has stressed that the tests in this area point to a daily production of 1,300 barrels of oil and 51,000 cubic meters of gas per day, while adding that “the activation of production in these two locations will be carried out through rapid development, given the proximity of the existing Ohanet and Rhurde Ulad Yemaa facilities.”

Separately, Sonatrach has pointed to “a third positive result recorded by Sonatrach following the drilling of a delineation well in the ‘Taghit’ search perimeter, in the Bechar Basin,” where “interesting gas production has been obtained following the test.” “This result is another proof of the gas potential in this previously untested field in a region considered as emerging,” he concluded.

The announcement came a week after the governments of Italy and Algeria signed a series of agreements on energy and anti-corruption, as part of an official visit to Algiers by Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, during which he met with Algerian President Abdelmayid Tebune.

The war in Ukraine has made Algeria the axis of European energy policy and has also led to agreements with the French company Engie, which joins the supply through Spain, although Algiers has already expressed its intention to turn its strategy to the detriment of Spain, which Algeria reproaches for its change to support the Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara, since the Saharawi independence fighters are allies of Algiers.