DJ. djes OPEC's Algeria Wants Oil Output Up 0.08M B/D By Early 03

["David" <david@logicaldirection.org>]

ALGIERS, Oct 23, 2002 (ODJ Select via COMTEX) -- (Dow Jones)--OPEC-member
Algeria plans to boost oil output by up to 80,000 barrels a day in the next
three months and triple that by March 2003 as a new oil field comes
onstream, a
source at state oil and gas company Sonatrach (O.SON) told Dow Jones
Newswires
Wednesday.

The additional crude oil production from the new Ourhoud oil field will take
Algeria even further over current output quotas, set at 693,000 b/d by the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries earlier this year.

Algeria produced some 300,000 b/d over its official quota in September,
according to a Dow Jones survey, and has been pressing OPEC for a greater
share
of total OPEC output. The North African country wants to be producing 1.5
million b/d oil by 2005.

Earlier this week, OPEC officials dashed hopes that the 58% quota hike
Algeria
had requested would be reviewed before March of next year.

Nevertheless, the Sonatrach source said the company expects to start ramping
up
production at the Ourhoud field to 230,000 b/d by March 2003.

"We plan to bring the Ourhoud field onstream by December this year with a
first
oil treatment train of 75,000-80,000 b/d and the development phase would be
completed by March 2003 with the construction of two other producing
facilities,
each with the same capacity," the source from Sonatrach said.

The Ourhoud field is located south of block 404, in the oil-rich Hassi
Berkine
basin in the southeastern region near the border with Libya. The Hassi
Berkine
basin holds an estimated 2.8 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.

Sonatrach is jointly operating the Ourhoud field with seven other companies,
including U.S. companies Anadarko Corp. and Burlington Resources, Spain's
Cepsa,
Italy's Eni (I.ENI), Canada's Talisman (T.B) and Denmark's Maersk (K.MAP).

The Ourhoud field is one of Algeria's biggest oil fields after Sonatrach's
core
area Hassi Messaoud.

The Ourhoud project includes eight new crude oil wells and the construction
of a
pipeline link to ship oil to the Hassi Berkine central processing facility.

By Selina Williams, Dow Jones Newswires; 44-20-7842-9262;
selina.williams@dowjones.com.