Algeria gave a natural gas block to Zhongman Petroleum, a private Chinese company
China’s Zhongman Petroleum and Natural Gas Group (ZPEC)(603619.SS) said it won a bid to explore and develop a natural gas block in Algeria under a production-sharing agreement. This is the first time the company has looked for hydrocarbons in Africa.
Algeria’s National Agency for the Valorization of Hydrocarbon Resources (ALNAFT) gave the deal to the free oil and gas explorer based in Shanghai to look into the Zerafa II block in the middle of the country, ZPEC said late Wednesday night on its official WeChat platform.
The company ZPEC said it beat out TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA), a global giant, and a group of companies led by Italy’s ENI and Norway’s Equinor to get the Zerafa II block.
Spread out over 38,697.73 square kilometers, the block is in the southern part of Algeria’s main gas-rich Gourara-Timimoun area.
ZPEC wouldn’t say how much the investment was worth and said the final deal hasn’t been signed yet.
ZPEC is one of China’s few independent oil and gas companies. It does business in Kazakhstan and China’s Xinjiang area. The business got the right to explore blocks in Iraq last year.
