Spain’s Repsol Oil Company has signed an agreement with Australia’s Woodside Petroleum and Portugal Partex Oil and Gas to explore an oil block in Algeria’s Berkine Basin. Repsol will hold a 55 percent stake in the 401-d field, Woodside a 35 percent stake and Partex a 10 percent stake.
The Berkine basin is one of the most prolific onshore basins in the region, where over seven billion barrels of oil have been discovered in the last ten years. Repsol won a concession for the block in 2001, in an international tender held in the Second Round of Exploration Concessions, organized by the Algerian Ministry of Energy and Mines, and the Algerian state company Sonatrach.
Repsol also operates two other fields in Algeria, both in the Illizi basin, in joint operation with Sonatrach, TotalFinaElf, and Issaouanne, giving a net production of 33,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The company also operates two exploration blocks in the Reggane basin, with RWE Dea and Edison Gas as partners. Probable and possible reserves in this area are estimated at over 500 million barrels of oil equivalent. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
