28 October 2010
Algeria losing ground in gas
During a decade in which world trade in gas expanded by 81%, Algeria's exports declined by 11%
JUST one statistic illustrates Algeria's decline in the business it once dominated. In 1999, the country's pipeline and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports accounted for 12% of the world's total cross-border trade in gas, while last year that share was only 6%. During a decade in which world trade in gas expanded by 81%, Algeria's exports declined by 11%. The decline was not the result of a lack of vision by the authorities. Over the 1990s, the country's creaking LNG installations had been refurbished and expanded, and a second pipeline to Europe – Pedro Duran Farell, to Spain – was constructed, doubling the country's export capacity to 60bn cubic metres a year (cm/y) in 1999. A new target
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