Algeria Expects 2014 Energy Earnings Dip to $60b

Algerian state-run energy group Sonatrach expects earnings from oil and gas sales to dip by 5.2 percent to $60 billion in 2014 from a year earlier if crude prices stabilise for the rest of the year, its interim chief executive said.

OPEC member Algeria, a major gas supplier to Europe, relies heavily on energy earnings to fund its economic development plans and the social programmes which helped it avert some of the unrest that hit its neighbours 2011.

"Earnings should be around $60 billion, subject to a stabilisation in oil prices," Sonatrach interim chief executive Said Sahnoun told state radio. He replaced the former Sontrach chief as the company's top manager in July.

Energy earnings dropped to $63.3 billion in 2013 from $70.5 billion in the previous year.

Algeria recently held a new energy bidding round where it only assigned four out of the 31 perimeters on offer, including a substantial number of unconventional oil and gas field tenders, in a bid to bolster stagnated production.

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