Algeria expects 40 per cent rise in natural gas production in five years

Algeria’s Energy Minister Yousef Al-Yousefi said on Sunday that his country expects to produce about 40 per cent more natural gas within the next five year, AFP news agency reported.

Speaking on the sidelines of an international meeting on natural gas production, the minister said that the production of natural gas in his country is on the rise again for the first time since the terrorist attack on the Amenas complex in the south of the country in 2013.

AFP quoted Al-Yousefi as saying that Algeria’s gas production would increase by 40 per cent within five years “and will double within a decade”.

The Amenas complex was subjected to a terrorist attack in January 2013 when 40 hostages from different countries were killed, causing a rapid decline in Algeria’s gas production.

As a result, Algerian gas production plummeted to 127.2 billion cubic metres in 2013.

Al-Yousefi said that oil production in his country has also improved in recent months, with the state-owned Sonatrach group now recovering output after last year’s attack.

According to the minister, there are vast Algerian reserves that have still not been excavated and this gives the government hope that the current levels of gas production would improve even more in the long term. “We are working on broadening our mineral reserve base with intensive exploration in all regions of the country” he said.