OPC witnesses Algeria exploration contract awards
David Carney, OPC’s Group Manager, Consultant Services, acted as an official witness at the Alnaft 2014 licensing round bids opening session in Algiers on 30th September. Four blocks were awarded in total – a Dragon-Enel oil consortium won two blocks, Tinhert Nord and Msari Akabil. A Statoil-Shell consortium was awarded Timissit and a Repsol-Shell partnership won the Boughezoul block.
David had been invited to the event organised by ALNAFT (L’Agence Nationale pour la Valorisation des Ressources en Hydrocarbures), the national agency in charge of promoting hydrocarbon resources in Algeria, and was asked to act as an official witness to the opening of the bids along with Sergey Panferov, Director of Gazprom in Algeria.
David said “I was delighted to act as a witness and play a role in the contracts award procedure which is conducted in public so is an open and transparent process. OPC has been involved with the Algerian oil & gas industry since 2006 and we are naturally delighted to see further exploration contracts awarded in the country. However with only 5 bids in total the bids participation from International E&P companies was disappointing.”
OPC’s North Africa Geosciences Team led by two experts with a combined 70 years upstream geology and geophysics knowledge of the Algerian hydrocarbon basins supported one of the successful bidders in the evaluation of 6 licenses.
OPC is also delivering bespoke training courses to Algerian national staff working for ALNAFT and the National Oil Company Sonatrach. This training is being facilitated through International E&P companies in Algeria as part of their contractual commitment to help with the workforce development of Algerian nationals. 2014 courses have included;
- AVO and Seismic Inversion
- Shale Gas Field Development
- Advanced Hydraulic Fracturing
- Petrophysics in Unconventional Reservoirs
David said “OPC is gaining recognition for our upstream geosciences and integrated subsurface engineering in-house expertise with International E&P companies seeking to explore and develop oil and gas fields in Algeria. We are also committed as a highly skilled and experienced expatriate organisation to support the training development through knowledge transfer of the national workforce which is vital for the future growth of Algeria’s hydrocarbon sector. We have recently published our 2015 training course programme with 22 technical and commercial courses in the categories of; General Management, Geology, Geophysics and Petrophysics, Reservoir and Production Engineering, Drilling Operations, Economics and Commerce. We anticipate a take up of these courses from at least 5 International E&P clients in-country.”
Contact: David Carney, OPC, 1-2 Apollo Studios, Charlton Kings Road, London, NW5 2SB, Tel: +44 (0)20 7428 1111, email: david.carney@test.opc.co.uk