Algeria oil, gas company to review tariffs with international clients

Algeria’s state-owned national oil and gas company, Sonatrach, said yesterday that it will review gas prices with all of its clients in light of international price rises, Anadolu reported.

This came in a press conference held by Director-General, Toufik Hakkar, who said that the review is not targeting a single company or country.

Regarding Spain’s re-export of gas to Morocco in reverse flow via the Gazoduc Maghreb-Europe (GME) pipeline, Hakkar said that the agreements with Sonatrach’s clients stipulate that they should inform the company about any other destination of its products.

Spain and Morocco agreed earlier this year to consider using the GME pipeline for reverseflow to the North African country with the gas to be sourced from the global LNG market.

On 1 November, Algeria, which has severed diplomatic ties with Morocco, stopped supplying natural gas to its neighbour through the GME pipeline.

Algeria is now supplying Spain using the Medgaz undersea pipeline with an annual capacityof 8 billion cubic metres. Under the previous agreement, Rabat received royalties worth 0.5 billion cubic metres of gas, which made up half the country’s consumption.

Hakkar said Sonatrach has the right to share the interest made through the re-exporting of its products to a third party. However, he said, there had been no evidence that Sonatrach’s gas was re-exported.

Meanwhile, Hakkar revealed Algeria’s oil and gas earnings reached $21.5 billion in the five first months of 2022, compared to $12.6 billion in the same period last year.

Spain accuses Algeria of cutting trade ties amid diplomatic crisis