Sonatrach Awards Gas Contract to Petrofac

Algerian state energy firm Sonatrach awarded a contract worth 60 billion dinars ($506 million) on Tuesday to Britain's Petrofac (POFCF) to boost gas output at the Tinhert field by 4.7 million cubic metre per day, Sonatrach's CEO said.

The value was about $100 million less than originally announced. Sonatrach CEO Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour said the difference in value was because part of the work, worth 10 billion dinars, had been awarded to Algeria's GCB.

The project in the Illizi region was expected to come online in 36 months, he told reporters.

($1 = 118.5060 Algerian dinars)

(Reporting by Lamine Chikhi Editing by Ulf Laessing and Edmund Blair)