Algerian state-owned oil and gas company Sonatrach is set to build the country’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, capable of producing 4.5 million tonnes of liquefied gas per year.
Sonatrach signed a $2.88 billion deal for the plant on Saturday with US engineering and construction company Kellog Brown & Root (KBR), a former subsidiary of Halliburton.
The plant is to be located be on Algeria’s eastern Mediterranean coast on site of a Sonatrach refinery wrecked by a gas tank explosion that killed almost 30 people in 2004.
Construction is scheduled to begin in September, with the plant operational by 2011.
Algeria has some of the largest reserves of natural gas in the world, and Energy Minister Chakib Khelil said the plant would boost its production capacity and sales to European markets.
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