Confident: Chakib Khelil
Algeria on track to hit export target
Algeria has enough capacity to meet its target of exporting 85 billion cubic metres of gas per year by 2012, Energy Minister Chakib Khelil said.
"It's already achievable. We have the capacity existing in the fields," Reuters quoted Khelil saying on the sidelines of a conference.
"What we don't have really is the pipeline (capacity), which is going to be in place early in 2010."
Khelil said new pipeline capacity, including the new Medgaz route to southern Spain and increased gas flow in the existing Transmed link to Italy, should allow Algeria to export 75 Bcm per year by the end of next year.
Mohamed Meziane, the head of the country's state-run producer Sonatrach, told Reuters that Medgaz would be operational "by the end of the first quarter of 2010".
Meanwhile, Khelil said the downward effect on world oil prices of Dubai's financial problems will be short-lived.
Asked if Dubai's problems would have a downward impact on oil prices, Khelil told reporters: "It has had and it has now passed. So the prices have been affected but only for a short time and now the prices will stabilise."