Algeria, Libya Sign Joint Field Study
Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC), Algerian state Sonatrach and US-based independent reserves auditor DeGolyer & MacNaughton this week signed a joint study of two gas fields.
NOC said in a statement January 16: "The study aims at updating the previous study that was conducted in 2008. It comes within the framework of the mutual cooperation between NOC and Sonatrach in terms of the development programs of each party fairly." The study will cover the al Wafa gas field inside Libya, and al Rar gas field just over the border in Algeria.
When an armed group in April 2017 briefly shut down pumping operations at al Wafa, operated by the Eni-NOC joint venture Melitah Oil & Gas, NOC then explained that "the Libyan al Wafa field and the Algerian al Rar field have a reservoir connectivity and shutting down any of them will affect the other."
NOC this week noted that al Wafa gas field began producing in 2004 and supplies gas to al Ruwais power plant in Baten Aljabal district of western Libya and the coastal system supplying other power plants.
More significantly al Wafa, along with Libya's Bahr Essalam gas field also operated by Melitah Oil & Gas, supply major gas volumes for export via the Green Stream pipeline to Sicily in southern Italy. Libyan gas exports via Green stream accounted for a typical 5% (0.345bn m3) of Italy's total gas imports during December 2017 of 6.59bn m3, according to provisional data from Italian gas grid operator Snam.
The two countries have stepped up cooperation, with Algerian state utility Sonelgaz holding talks with its Libyan counterpart in November about possible electricity exports to Libya. Separately, Siemens last month signed contracts with state-owned utility General Electricity Company of Libya (Gecol) to boost Libyan power generation capacity in Libya by 1.3 GW by building two open-cycle power plants.
The January 15 agreement was signed by NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla (left in the photo below, courtesy of NOC), Sonatrach CEO Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour (centre), and DeGolyer & MacNaughton CEO John W Wallace (right). E&P chiefs from Sonatrach and NOC, respectively namely Jaweed Ben Sharif and Abdulgasem Shingheer, also attended the signing event.
