Sonatrach

Sonatrach (Société Nationale pour la Recherche, la Production, le Transport, la Transformation, et la Commercialisation des Hydrocarbures s.p.a) is an Algerian public company and a major enterprise in the oil industry.

Information:

Type: Public Company

Headquarters: Algiers, Algeria

Industry: Oil and Natural Gas

Revenue: $77 Billion 

Employees: 120,000

Sonatrach is the largest  and richest Algerian and African company and the 11th largest oil consortium in the world, it is the backbone of the Algerian economy. Its diversified activities cover all aspects of production: exploration, extraction, transport, and refining. It has diversified into petrochemistry and the desalination of seawater. Sonatrach was founded on December 31, 1963. At the time, however, the Algerian state held only 4.5% of the exploration perimeters, while French interests were as high as 67.5%. After the Arab-Israeli War in June 1967, Algeria decided to nationalize the refining and distribution activities of Mobil and Esso, and Sonatrach signed an agreement with Getty Oil on October 19, 1968 receiving 51% of Getty Oil's interests.

It gained control over all Algerian petrochemical resources following President Houari Boumedienne's nationalization of all French oil and gas holdings beginning on February 24, 1971. The old concession system was replaced by a seizure of a 51% share of French petroleum companies.

 

Only Total agreed to continue its activities; the other companies left Algeria. Beginning on December 10, 1979, a conference on the exploitation of petroleum recommended increasing participation in the research efforts by foreign companies and countries. By a decree published in the Journal Officiel on May 17, 1980, Sonatrach was divided into four enterprises. From 1986, it became possible for foreign hydrocarbon companies to do business in Algeria within a partnership with Sonatrach (this process was simplified in 1991). The Sonatrach-Gaz de France accord, signed on January 12, 1989, allowed the state to set a compromise price of about $2.30 per million BTUs. A total of 9.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas were delivered annually until 1990, and Sonatrach recovered 850 million francs in arrears, since the accord applied retroactively beginning on November 1, 1987.

Operational Regions 

Africa:

Mali, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Niger and Mauritania

Europe:

Spain, Italy, France, Russia, United Kingdom and Portugal 

America:

United States and Peru