The Southern Fields project on the giant In Salah venture in Algeria has been green lit, UK super-major BP announced today in a press release.

Statoil facility in Algeria attacked

Algeria

OSLO, March 18, 2016 – Statoil reported an attack on its Krechba gas asset in Algeria on Friday morning. The asset is part of the In Salah project, jointly operated by BP, state-owned Sonatrach and Statoil. According to the Norwegian major, a gas facility had been hit by “explosive munitions fired from a distance,” adding that its three employees on site were safe and accounted for.

The joint venture’s emergency response organisation was dispatched from Hassi Messaoud shortly after the attack, which took place in the Sahara Desert some 1,200 km south of Algiers. In 2013, Statoil lost five people in a terrorist attack that left 40 people dead in the In Amenas gasfield.

In February, the In Salah’s Southern Fields project kicked off, encompassing 26 new wells, 310 km of new pipelines, modification work on process factories and a new gas dehydration facility. The In Salah venture covers Algeria’s third-largest gasfield, which has a production capacity of 9 bcm (318 bcf) per year.