Algeria has announced that a new gas processing plant is now online at Gassi Touil in the Sahara desert
The plant, with a total capacity of 3.6bn cubic metres per year, has now started production from 42 out of 52 planned wells, Reuters quoted an unnamed official at state-owned company Sonatrach.
Meanwhile, Algeria’s energy and mines minister Youcef Yousfi said that the third train at In Amenas will be on stream in a few months.
Ali Hached, a senior adviser to Yousfi, had stated in January this year that the three-train facility was producing 20mn cubic metres per day — around two thirds of its full capacity of 30mn cubic metres.
The plant, operated by a joint venture of BP, Statoil and Sonatrach, was producing 11.5 per cent of Algeria’s natural gas output before a militant attack in 2013.
Yousfi added that Algeria will also start up a new six billion cubic metres per year LNG plant this year.
