Algerian oil and gas giant Sonatrach says that three of the four processing trains at the Alrar gas complex in the Illizi Basin on the Libya border restarted on 12 February. The plant was taken offline after a 27 November fire at Train N1, which remains offline. Restart of the other three trains follows the completion of repairs to damaged infrastructure shared by all four trains, Sonatrach says.
Sonatrach CEO Rachid Hachichi, in a 13 February visit to the complex, says that the restart of the three trains enables Alrar “to resume with its full productive capacity, estimated at 18mn m3/day [640mn cfd].” In reality, the capacity figure is moot: typical throughputs have dwindled to perhaps half this in recent years with the aim of a 2024 EPC award for the fields supplying the plant to “maintain production at 10mn m³/day [350mn cfd]” (MEES, 23 August 2024). (CONTINUED - 214 WORDS)