APS : Tuesday, 15 January 2019
ILLIZI (Algeria)- The chief executive officer of Sonatrach Group, Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour, said Monday that Algeria still has a large capacity to produce oil and gas.
“If there is a drop in national oil production, it is due to the respect of the quotas reduced as part of the OPEC/non-OPEC agreement,” Ould Kaddour said at a press briefing during a visit to many provinces.
In reply to a question about the figures published recently by the National Statistics Office, Ould Kaddour underlined a fall by 7.8% in hydrocarbon output in the third quarter 2018, compared with the same period in 2017.
According to the CEO of Sonatrach, even if Algeria has a large a capacity to produce oil, it cannot produce as it does today because of the threshold.
“For crude oil, there is a threshold, so we cannot produce more than today even if we have the required capacity.”
In gas production, however, there is no threshold, Ould Kaddour said.
“Sonatrach should focus more on gas as it can produce as it wants, mainly for the development of the petrochemical industry.”
