Sonatrach has announced another ambitious project that it will undertake within the shores of the country to increase its strategic storage. Speaking on behalf of the company, Chief Executive officer Abdelhamid Zerguine said that an investment plan worth DZD 198 billion will be pumped into the plan to increase the country’s strategic potential of storing petroleum products. CEO Abdelhamid Zerguine said that the investment plan is part of plans to adapt to their business environment. According to him, “this is a redeployment of our storage strategy that will strengthen and modernize the business to meet the growing demand for refined products.”
The program adopted by the State to meet the growing demand of refined products, including fuels, covers the achievement of integrated plants in large capacity refineries, said Zerguine while inspecting the site Sidi El Abed (Sougueur) which will accommodate the 5 million tone capacity future refinery in Tiaret.
Algeria’s strategic storage presently covers only 7 days, which is a week. The recent hefty investment plan will increase the capacity to more than a three-fold. Upon completion, the country will able to store its petroleum products for up to 30 days, the CEO of Sonatrach underlined.
Under this plan, Sonatrach will be directly involved in reinforcing the capacity of refined products storage and distribution with the deposits to be made in the four refineries the Group expects to achieve over the next five years. Storage depots, part of the new petrochemical area of Tiaret will be achieved in Ain Kermes, near the refinery location and will have a capacity of 300,000 tones, likely to meet demands of the western region, facing cyclical disturbances in fuels.
Another storage capacity at Naftal which is also included in the project will see its capacity increased.