Italian company Eni has expanded its presence in Algeria, this time in the southwestern region, by acquiring assets of Neptune Energy in the Touat Gas Project in the Adrar province. This comes months after Eni’s acquisition of assets from British Petroleum in the gas fields of Ain Salah and Ain Amenas.
In this context, the Italian giant Eni announced the purchase of the British energy group Neptune Energy, specialized in exploration and production of hydrocarbons, which owns assets in the Tuat Gas project in the Adrar province, which has been non-operational for some time.
According to a statement from Eni, released on Friday and reviewed by “El Chourouk,” the company reached an agreement, along with Far Energy Company, to acquire Neptune Energy Group. The deal includes the purchase of all Neptune assets except those located in Germany, with a total value of $4.9 billion.
The agreement stipulates dividing the deal into two parts: Eni will pay $2.6 billion to acquire all of Neptune’s activities except those in Norway, which will be purchased by Far Energy for $2.3 billion. It is worth mentioning that Far Energy is a Norwegian company and is also a subsidiary of Eni.
According to Eni’s statement, Neptune Energy owns assets in the United Kingdom, producing 15,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, the Netherlands producing 18,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, and Algeria through the Tuat Gas project, in addition to assets in Egypt, Indonesia, Australia, and Norway.
Eni’s statement also mentioned that the Tuat Gas project in Algeria is currently non-operational and will be resumed once the gas processing facilities are updated. It added that the total production at that time will reach 400 million standard cubic feet per day, equivalent to 70,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
The statement emphasized that Eni, being the leading foreign energy company in Algeria, had its own production in Algeria reaching 95,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day last year, and it will increase to 120,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day after this deal. It highlighted that Algeria has become a major gas supplier to Europe.
It should be noted that Eni completed the acquisition of assets from British Petroleum (BP) in the Ain Salah and Ain Amenas fields a few months ago. The fields are operated in partnership with Sonatrach and Equinor, the Norwegian company, after obtaining approval from the Algerian authorities.
According to Eni’s statement at that time, the acquisition process, which was fully completed, received approval from the relevant Algerian authorities as well as the European antitrust authority (“antitrust”), which was obtained in early December of last year.
