ALGESCO, a joint company between Sonatrach, Sonelgaz and GE on Thursday celebrated the official opening of its new Service Centre located in Boufarik, 35 kilometres from Algiers in Algeria.
According to GE, the new 18,300 square metres facility is the largest GE Oil & Gas turbomachinery equipment service centre in the world and represents a US$36 million investment by the company in supporting the continued growth of Algeria’s oil and gas and power generation sectors.
Algeria’s Minister of Energy and Mines, Youcef Yousfi performed the official ribbon-cutting at an inauguration event hosted by Abdelhak Lalouani, general manager, ALGESCO and Algeria executive leader – Global Services, GE Oil & Gas and attended by more than 200 VIP customers and dignitaries.
Claudi Santiago, president and CEO, GE Oil & Gas said: “This superb new $36 million investment state-of-the-art Boufarik service centre is a credit to the strength of GE’s reliable partnership with Sonatrach and Sonelgaz, and demonstrates GE’s commitment to Algeria and the region. Working together, the ALGESCO partners will continue to support Algeria’s oil and gas sectors with world-class service capabilities, technology transfer, skills development and the creation of local jobs.”
A joint venture first established in 1993 in Hassi-R’mell, ALGESCO provides repairs and services for a broad range of turbines, compressors and related equipment for Algeria’s power generation and oil and gas sectors. The new Boufarik service facility will serve as a global ‘centre of excellence’ for turbomachinery services and will provide a range of advanced technologies to help Algeria increase its oil and gas capacity and its power generation availability to end users.
The service centre’s expanded services include restoring gas turbine components to their original conditions, restoring the original physical features of materials, and extending the expected life of gas turbine components. Technology areas to be covered include LNG, pipeline compression, pipeline inspection and integrity, gas and CO2 storage, refinery and petrochemical applications, and around-the-clock, remote monitoring and diagnostics for GE’s installed fleet.
Currently there are 170 Algerian ALGESCO employees, including approximately 90 trained field engineers. A recruitment programme for field service engineers, management and shop technicians is designed to enlarge the local team by 30% between now and the end of 2011.
GE’s installed fleet in Algeria includes approximately 400 gas turbines, 340 compressors, 200 centrifugal pumps, 50 steam turbines and 35,000 kilometres of inspected pipelines. The country is the third largest supplier of gas to Europe, accounting for about 20% of imports.
Sonatrach is the largest Algerian company and the 11th largest oil consortium in the world, while Sonelgaz is the state-owned utility in charge of electricity and gas distribution in Algeria.
