17-01-09 Algeria and the Netherlands have begun discussion on a possible partnership involving Nigeria and Royal Dutch Shell in a project aimed as exporting Nigeria's gas to Europe across the Sahara. Algerian Energy and Mines Minister, Chakib Khelil, said the issue was part of the issues which he discussed with Dutch Economic Affairs Minister, Maria van der Hoeven.
"The Energy Minister indicated that the two parties had raised the possibility of a partnership between Sonatrach, the Nigerian hydrocarbon company NNPC and the Anglo-Dutch Shell company to develop the mega-project of the Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline linking Nigeria to Europe via Algeria," a report said.

The Saharan project, with capital costs estimated at $ 10 bn for the pipeline and $ 3 bn for the gathering centres, would send up to 30 bn cm a year of gas to Europe via a 4,128 km (2,580 mile) pipeline from Nigeria, via Niger and Algeria, starting in 2015. It would be recalled that the NNPC is the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, while Sonatrach is Algeria's state owned oil and gas conglomerate.
However, the European Union (EU) Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs has welcomed the venture as being in the interests of European energy security and the environment and of Africa's development. Piebalgs has also said the EU might help finance it.

The project is looking for support from European governments and gas consumers, which are concerned about falling domestic supplies and reliance on gas piped in from Russia. Russian gas monopoly Gazprom said last year it was holding preliminary talks with Nigeria about participating in the venture.
The gas would cross the Mediterranean via a growing network of pipelines that now takes Algeria's gas to increasingly gas-dependent customers in Europe.