Abu Dhabi-owned Spanish firm Cepsa and Algerian state firm Sonatrach have awarded US contractor KBR Basic Engineering Design and Front End Engineering Design (FEED) contracts for redevelopment of the Rhourde el Khrouf field in Algeria’s Berkine Basin. The award of this initial contract, which KBR expects will take eight months to execute, comes a full 16 months after Cepsa and Sonatrach signed a $1.2bn deal with the aim of tripling output from the current 11,000 b/d with the drilling of 30 additional wells (MEES, 26 January 2018). Such delays are emblematic of Algeria’s upstream woes (MEES, 24 May)
Cepsa’s core business is Spanish refining. However Algeria accounts for two-thirds (53,500 b/d) of the firm’s 83,400 b/d of global working interest upstream output. The key stake is around 40% of the 100,000 b/d Ourhoud field where Cepsa is operator. (CONTINUED - 197 WORDS)