Wednesday 17 February 2021
Last update on Wednesday, February 17, 2021 At 10:20 AM
While the global oil refining industry is in turmoil, in Algeria the business is at its best. This is thanks to the return to production of the Algiers refinery and to sustained demand.
On February 15, the Algerian public hydrocarbon producer (Sonatrach) published results it considers satisfactory, within its unit in charge of petroleum refining, on behalf of the previous financial year.
Diesel production thus reached a record level of 9.5 million tonnes and gasoline production 3.4 million tonnes. Compared with 2019, the volumes of oil and condensate processed increased 7.4%, from 27.2 million tonnes to 29.1 million tonnes.
These excellent production levels have enabled the country to end diesel imports since March 2020 and gasoline-related imports since August. According to the local APS news agency, Sonatrach also exported, for the first time in the last decade, gasoline and diesel, in fiscal year 2020.
This improvement is mainly due to the arrival at full capacity of the Sidi R’cine refinery in the east of Algiers, which was facing numerous technical difficulties. The new industry administration, which has made performance optimization a top priority, has gone to great lengths to fix the problem.
Source Ecofin Agency
