Production at the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria’s Sahara desert dropped by over 40% in Q1 this year, to 3.5 bcm/year on an annualized basis, with one of the plant’s two operational trains undergoing maintenance. Operations were further disrupted following the 18 March attack on the Krechba site of the In Salah gas development. BP and Statoil, partners in both In Amenas and In Salah withdrew their staff from both joint ventures. At Krechba, only Sonatrach engineers were left to operate the site, according to reports.
The Krechba attack came just over three years after 40 workers were killed at In Amenas attack in January 2013. Prior to Q1, production at the 9 bcm/year In Amenas facility has been fairly stable ranging between 5.7 bcm/year and 6.5 bcm/year since the end of 2013 when operations resumed at two of the three trains. (CONTINUED - 236 WORDS)
