Gas Production Development
english issue
Gas Production Development
Sonatrach ’ s New Challenge
By Lies Sahar
The restricted board meeting held on 22 February 2016 devoted to national gas policy focused on an issue that has been the subject of debate for many years in the sector . This issue relates to the decline in domestic natural gas production observed for some years since 2010 . This happens at a time when domestic consumption has sharply increased , driven by the electricity sector , the development of the use of natural gas in households and new petrochemical units . The coverage rate of 99 % for electricity supply has necessitated huge investment , but also new quantities of natural gas , as it is the main resource for the production of electricity . Natural gas in households , which reached 52 % according to official figures , also required further natural gas supplies . The launch of new petrochemical units also required large volumes of gas on the market , and this explains the doubling of consumption since the early 2000 ’ s .
Consumption Doubled
The setup is simple . If natural gas production is not boosted , domestic consumption will diminish gas volumes for export , and this has heavy consequences on external exchange earnings and Sonatrach ’ s international market shares . When analysing data relating to national consumption , we note that the latter has almost doubled since the early 2000 ’ s to 40 billion cubic meters of natural gas in late 2015 . Besides , exports , which exceeded 60 billion cubic meters a year in the early 2000 ’ s , declined to about 44 billion cubic meters in 2014 . According to projections in a strong scenario case , by 2030 , consumption of natural gas will more than double .
If nothing is done , and the production level remains unchanged , the entire natural gas production will be absorbed by the domestic market . Clearly , in such scenario , more than half the volume of hydrocarbons exports will not be available for export . In 2014 , natural gas exports by pipeline and LNG exports generated 30 % of export revenues , i . e . more than 17.7 billion out of 58.36 billion dollars . Furthermore , LPG and condensate , which are extracted from wet natural gas deposits , accounted for 5.2 and 3.9 billion dollars of exports in 2014 . It is clear that to avoid a serious crisis in the future , production of natural gas needs to be developed . The programme of renewable energy development should allow the satisfaction of part of the national electricity demand by 2030 , that is 27 %, and save significant amounts of natural gas , i . e . 300 billion cubic meters .
50 / OIL & GAS business / NUMÉRO 13 / mars 2016