TotalEnergies SE and QatarEnergy have secured an exploration area spanning 14,900 square kilometers (5,752.92 square miles) onshore Algeria.
The Ahara license, awarded under the North African country’s 2024 bidding round, sits at the “intersection of the prolific Berkine and Illizi Basins”, TotalEnergies said in a press release.
France’s TotalEnergies will serve as operator with a 24.5 percent stake during the exploration and appraisal phases. State-owned QatarEnergy also owns 24.5 percent. Algeria’s national oil and gas company Sonatrach SpA has the majority stake of 51 percent in accordance with Algerian law.
Ahara marks QatarEnergy’s entry into Algeria’s upstream sector, QatarEnergy said separately.
For TotalEnergies the license expands a footprint that already includes producing licenses.
Algeria contributed 154 million cubic feet a day of gas and 21,000 barrels per day of liquids to TotalEnergies’ 2024 production, according to the company’s annual report.
Last year TotalEnergies and Sonatrach signed a memorandum of understanding to conclude a hydrocarbon contract in the north-east Timimoun region.
“This Memorandum of Understanding outlines the realization of a work program for the appraisal and development of gas resources in the North-East Timimoun region, in synergy with existing processing facilities for production from the Timimoun field, to reduce costs and emissions”, TotalEnergies said in a press release April 8, 2024.
TotalEnergies and Sonatrach also extended a contract for the delivery of Algerian LNG to the French port of Fos-Cavaou near Marseille until 2025. That extension involves two million metric tons of LNG.
In 2023 TotalEnergies and Sonatrach signed an agreement to raise gas production in the Tin Fouye Tabankort II and Tin Fouye Tabankort Sud fields in the south of Algeria. The projects include the drilling of more wells and the upgrade of existing facilities.
“The combined production of the two fields is expected to exceed 100,000 boe [barrels of oil equivalent] per day by 2026, versus a level of around 60,000 boe per day in 2022, thus increasing the potential export of Algerian gas to the European market”, TotalEnergies said July 10, 2023.
TotalEnergies owns 26.4 percent of Tin Fouye Tabankort II and 49 percent of Tin Fouye Tabankort Sud. TotalEnergies’ other producing fields in Algeria are the Timimoun gas fields (37.75 percent) and the Ourhoud and El Merk oil fields in the Berkine basin located in Blocks 404a and 208 (12.25 percent).
Another agreement was signed at the time between Sonatrach and TotalEnergies for cooperation on “renewables projects to solarize exploration and production sites for oil and gas; a study of the potential for renewable, low-carbon hydrogen for the export market; an R&D [research and development] program in low carbon energies and the energy transition”, according to TotalEnergies’ statement.
However, TotalEnergies that year exited the Sonatrach Total Entreprise de Polymeres joint venture formed 2019 to explore a petrochemical project in Arzew in the northwest of Algeria.
To contact the author, email jov.onsat@rigzone.com
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