Platts: Shale gas opponents bent on political destabilization: Algerian energy minister

Objections to shale gas development amount to attempts at political destabilization, Algeria's official press agency reported the country's energy minister as saying Saturday.

"These attempts to demonize shale production target countries that advocate energy nationalism to assert sovereignty over their natural resources," Youcef Yousfi was quoted as saying.

While recognizing that some opposition to shale gas exploitation was driven by fear of novel development methods, he rejected recent accusations by certain political parties that Algiers' authorization of pilot shale drilling was an attempt to continue an economic policy of oil revenue dependency.

"Algeria is constrained in the medium term to rely on oil windfalls to finance development," Yousfi said.
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