The national oil company SONATRACH has become the majority shareholder in Medgaz SA, after having completed on Saturday a transaction to acquire 19.10% of the shares held by the Spanish company CEPSA Holding in this company.

With this major international operation, SONATRACH increases its stake by 8.04% in Medgaz SA, according to a press release from the national company.

SONATRACH's stake thus goes from 42.96% to 51% in Medgaz SA, which manages and operates the offshore gas pipeline directly connecting Algeria, departing from the compression station located in Beni-Saf, in Spain at the arrival terminal located in Almeria.

Through this acquisition, SONATRACH becomes the majority shareholder of Medgaz SA alongside its long-standing partner Naturgy, which owns 49% and “thus strengthens its position as a major and reliable supplier of Algerian gas to import customers to Europe, in particular the Iberian Peninsula through the Medgaz gas pipeline”, underlines the same source.

With a diameter of 24 inches and a length of 210 km, the offshore pipeline has an annual transport capacity of 8.2 billion cubic meters (m3), which will be increased during the 1st quarter of 2021 to 10, 2 billion m3 by the addition of a 4th turbo-compressor at the Beni-Saf compressor station in Algeria.

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