In Salah Gas, a joint venture between Sonatrach, BP and Statoil has started up its Southern Fields project.
It is the latest stage in the development of seven gas fields in central Algeria. The In Salah Gas joint venture commenced production in 2004 from three fields in the north of the area: Krechba, Teguentour and Reg. The Southern Fields project involves the development of four dry gas fields: Gour Mahmoud, In Salah, Garet el Befinat and Hassi Moumene. Developing the Southern Fields will maintain planned production at 318Billion cubic feet (9Billion cubic metres) per annum.
Drilling of 26 planned southern field wells began in 2014 and is planned to continue until 2018. The project’s scope includes a new 500MMscf/d gas dehydration central processing facility close to Hassi Moumene, brown field modifications to existing processing facilities at Reg, Teg and Krechba, 150 km of carbon steel export pipelines, 160 km of 13% chrome corrosion resistant alloy infield flowlines and the drilling and tie in of the 26 new wells.
Production is planned to ramp up to the planned peak of 14.1 million cubic metres per day (500 MMscf/d) as wells in the Hassi Moumene and Garet el Befinat field are brought on line between February and April 2016.
