Algeria's state energy company Sonatrach has replaced its chief Abdelhamid Zerguine with vice president for production Said Sahnoun, a senior Sonatrach source told Reuters on Saturday. The source, who asked not to be identified, gave no details, but Sonatrach is under pressure to increase stagnating energy output in the North African OPEC oil producer, which is also a major supplier of gas to European markets. Zerguine, a former Sonatrach vice president for pipelines and head of a Sonatrach unit in Switzerland, was appointed chief of the company in November 2011. Later this year, Algeria will hold a new energy bidding round seen as essential to attracting foreign oil producers into its sector and help offset a drop-off in production. The Algerian state firm has been hit in recent years by corruption allegations, and struggled to operate within the country's ageing infrastructure and to persuade foreign partners to take part in its most recent bidding rounds. Algeria produces 1.2 million barrels of oil per day, and 86.4 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year. The Egyptian independent daily Al-Shorouk reported on Saturday that Egypt will receive its first liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments from Sonatrach by December, after the technical team finished examining the Sokhna port last week. Al-Shorouk cited an anonymous source at the state-run EGAS holding company saying that the Algerian company will deliver around 725,000 cubic metres in five shipments to Egypt, adding that the price is yet to be determined. "Negotiations are still undergoing and both the price and the delivering time are yet to be determined," said Khaled Abdel-Badie, the head of EGAS. "We are waiting for another technical visit from Sonatrach to seal the deal," he told Ahram Online on Saturday. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/107122.aspx
