Minister of Industry and SMEs Slim Feriani and CEO of Eni Claudio Descalzi signed the new agreement for transporting Algerian natural gas through Tunisia, in the presence of Prime Minister Youssef Chahed.
The agreement follows the ones reached with Sonatrach last May, in relation to the purchase of gas and transport in the Strait of Sicily (the TPMC system) and completes the contractual framework that allows Eni to import Algerian gas into Italy.
With this agreement, Eni undertakes to operate the pipeline for the next 10 years, through its subsidiary Trans Tunisian Pipeline Company (TTPC), ensuring necessary reinvestment for modernising infrastructure and taking advantage of the exclusive rights to the entire transport capacity.
The agreement represents a further confirmation of Eni’s long-standing commitment to North African countries, not only in hydrocarbon exploration and production but also in managing transport infrastructure, marketing petroleum products, the chemical sector and producing energy from renewable sources.
Minister of Industry Slim Feriani said that this ten-year agreement (from September 1, 2019) will strengthen the State’s cash flow in annual revenues of around 500 million dinars (MD).
“Tunisia will make the most of a royalty on the gas pipeline transporting Algerian gas to Italy, estimated at 5.25%,” the minister said, adding that the Italian Consortium is committed to ensuring the maintenance of equipment at a cost of nearly 160 million dollars (nearly 460 MD), over a period of 10 years.
He specified that this agreement will also allow Tunisia to benefit from 3.8 billion m3 of natural gas, which represents 65% of the national annual gas consumption.
The two previous agreements concluded between the Tunisian government and ENI concerning the gas pipeline date back to 1977 and 1991.
TunisianMonitorOnline
