Business | Oil & Gas
Sonatrach sells gas to Spanish utility directly
Sona-trach, Algeria's state-owned energy group, has sold natural gas to Spanish utility HC Energia in a bid to increase sales outside its home country and bypass wholesale gas distributors.
- Bloomberg
- Published: 00:11 May 6, 2008
Algiers: Sona-trach, Algeria's state-owned energy group, has sold natural gas to Spanish utility HC Energia in a bid to increase sales outside its home country and bypass wholesale gas distributors.
Sonatrach Gas Comercializadora, the company's Spanish unit, began supplying utility Hidrocantabrico Energia, or HC Energia, the Algiers-based company said in a statement on its Web site.
Sonatrach sold a liquefied natural gas shipment of 30,000 cubic metres to HC Energia, a unit of EDP-Energias de Portugal SA, the Algerian company said. LNG is gas cooled to a liquid for transportation by tanker ships to destinations not linked by a pipeline.
Direct to home
Sonatrach said three years ago that it plans to generate one-third of its sales outside Algeria by 2015, up from five per cent now.
It seeks to sell gas directly to homes and businesses in Italy, France and Spain, without going through distributors like ENI Spa, Gaz de France SA and Gas Natural.
Sonatrach is seeking to benefit from the opening of the energy markets in the European Union, which last year extended the right to choose gas suppliers to households, after giving it to large businesses in 1999.
Sonatrach has sold gas in Spain to Gas Natural SDG SA through a sub-sea pipeline that was completed in 1996.
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