Algeria's state petroleum company Sonatrach has let a lump sum contract worth more than $450 million to Bechtel Corp. to engineer and construct the 330 mile Algerian segment of the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline.
When complete in 1996, the Maghreb-Europe pipeline system will be the first large diameter gas transmission link from Morocco to the European continent.
Spanish gas company Enagas later this year is to award construction contracts on the Moroccan and Spanish portions of the pipeline.
The total Maghreb-Europe pipeline system will run from Alergia's Hassi R'Mel gas field in the Sahara desert, across northern Morocco, and under the Strait of Gibraltar to Cordoba, Spain, where it will tie into the Spanish gas transmission pipeline grid. The system ultimately could be expanded to transport gas to Portugal, France, and Germany.
Bechtel this summer in Houston is to begin detailed engineering of the Algerian segment.
Armel Mon,an, Bechtel's manager of the construction project, said construction camps are to be set up in summer 1994, and construction is to begin in the fall. He said terrain along the pipeline route is rugged desert, mostly rock, with temperatures reaching more than 110 F. in the summer and dropping below freezing in winter. The workforce at peak construction is expected to total about 2,000.
Mike Thiele, Bechtel senior vice president and manager of the company's pipeline and industrial business, said the Maghreb-Europe line at first will have capacity of about 700 MMcfd of gas. System capacity will ramp up to about 1.8 bcfd as Compression is added. In addition to engineering and construction of the Algerian portion of the pipeline, Bechtel's contract includes procurement of materials and components and installing a fiber optic telecommunication and control system along the pipeline route.
Bechtel Financing Services Inc. arranged financing for the project through the U.S. Export-Import Bank and France's Coface and Germany's Hermes export credit agencies.
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