Under the transaction expected to conclude by end-2018, all Chergui employees will transfer to Perenco which already operates assets in Tunisia. Petrofac said it expects to book a small gain on the transaction. Neither company has yet divulged the value of the deal.
Tunisian state-owned ETAP owns the other 55% stake in Chergui. Production began in August 2008, when the gas process plant's capacity was 20mn ft3/d. Gas was piped to the nearby city of Sfax. The field was shut in during December 2016 following two weeks of renewed protests on Kerkennah island, only three months after restarting output after similar unrest; NGW has no data on recent production.
Petrofac has worked as a contractor in Tunisia since 2007 during which time it completed a major project for BG (now Shell) at the Hasdrubal gas plant.
Petrofac announced June 27 it had picked up $110mn of contract work in Iraq, chiefly on oilfields, while on June 28 it said it had secured a oil wells management project at the Tui field in New Zealand.