As Algeria Politics & Security – 18.03.16 reported, a rocket attack was launched at around 05.30-06.00 local time on 18 March against the Krechba gas facility operated by the In Salah Gas Joint Venture in which BP, Statoil and Sonatrach are shareholders.

Krechba is situated 200 kms southwest of El Ménéa on the Tademait plateau in Ghardaia wilaya but close to the border of Tamanrasset wilaya.

There were no causalities and no reported damage to the facility where approximately 600 employees work. According to Statoil and BP, the two companies had three and two employees, respectively, at the plant.

According to industry sources, 3-4 rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) were fired at the plant, from a distance. The Defence Ministry sources which have sought to downplay the incident, said that two home-made records were fired from a distance of 11-15 kms.

The attack comes three years and two months after the deadly attack on the Tiguentourine gas facility near In Salah, which is also jointly managed by BP and Statoil, and which resulted in 40 foreign oil workers being killed. That attack was allegedly organised by Mokhtar ben Mokhtar. This latest attack has been claimed by AQIM, which warned that the attack was part of the ‘war against the interests of the Crusaders in every place.’

Following the attack, BP and Statoil decided to withdraw their personnel from several plants that they are involved in as a precautionary safety measure. These include the Tiguentourine plant at In Amenas and their headquarters at Hassi Messaoud.

According to statements from the two companies, all staff from In Salah, In Amenas, and Hassi Messaoud will be temporarily relocated out of Algeria. Production at the plants is expected to be maintained by Sonatrach employees.

According to a Sonatrach release, production at Krechba is currently 19.5 million standard cubic feet of gas per day (MMSCFD) and between 13.5 and 15.0 MMSCFD at Tiguentourine. The Krechba facility produces 2 BCM of gas a year, while all fields in the In Salah complex currently produce around 9 BCM a year. Tiguentourine is still not back to full production following the January 2013 attack. According to Statoil, it is expected to be back at 100% production within the next few months. Gas from the Krechba facility is fed by a pipeline into the Hassi R’mel gas hub.

According to the Defence Ministry, the army killed four of the seven militants on 19 March, while three others who escaped in a second vehicle were injured and are apparently close to capture. According to the same source, the attack was led by Abu Mohamed El Tergui, whose real name is apparently Salam Ghinan. While designated as a Tuareg (El Tergui), this is not a Tuareg name. That could, however, be an error by the defence ministry, which often has problems with local names.

The ministry describes Abu Mohamed El Tergui as an ‘Algerian-Malian jihadist, born in Kidal in 1984 and belonging to the El Fourkane brigade.’ According to the same source, this brigade is led by the emir Al Talha Ansari (a.k .a. Talha Al Libi), and under the command of AQIM’s new Sahara leader, Djamel Okacha (a.ka. Abu Yahia Al Hammam).

Djamel Okacha’s real name is Yahia Djouadi. He is an Algerian and was closely associated with Abderrazak Lamari, better known as ‘El Para’, who was the DRS agent responsible for the 2003 kidnapping of 32 tourists in the Algerian Sahara. We do not know how strong Djouadi’s links to the DRS may now be following its recent dismantlement.

However, it may well be that he retains links to what is now being referred to as General Hassan’s milit ia, whose members are suspected of being three of those killed near El Oued on 10 March.

If there is any truth in the last statement, as some of our local sources believe, this latest attack raises questions of whether it is linked to some sort of revenge activity by members of, or sympathisers with, General Hassan’s so-called militia.

The Ministry of Defence and the Presidency both issued statements saying that the attackers, who are mostly Mauritanians, crossed into Algeria from Mali. The evidence for this, according to the ministry, is that wiretaps at Bordj Badji Mokhtar on the Mali border alerted the security forces to the fact that Abu Mohamed El Tergui, had recently crossed from the El Fourkhane stronghold near Timbuktu into Algeria.

The Malian origin of the attack may or may not be true. If it is then it raises serious questions about the porosity of the Malian- Algerian border, which army chief of staff General Gaïd Salah has been alleging for many months to be ‘closed’ and secure. We know from our own sources in the region that it is, in fact, still as porous as ever.

The army’s insistence that the attack came from Mali may be to offset rumours that the attackers may be linked to those that were killed in the El Oued region on 10 March. This would be a potentially far more worrying scenario for IOCs and the security forces, because it raises questions about the links to General Hassan’s militia and possibly some sort of revenge attack against hydrocarbon facilities, perhaps related, as some sources are suggesting, to the return of Chakib Khelil.

Irrespective of the source of the attack — Mali or from the El Oued nexus — questions are inevitably being asked as to how two vehicles of armed militants could possibly cross such vast distances of open desert completely undetected.

Unless the authorities can provide satisfactory answers to this and related questions, then they will have great difficulty in attracting new foreign investors into the hydrocarbon sector.

We should also add there have been some rumours in the region, although without any evidence so far, that the attack may have been more local in origin, and was possibly tied to those opposed to shale gas exploration in the region. Although we think that the Malian or El Oued scenarios are the two most likely, this third scenario cannot be discounted.

A further question, on which we can currently add no further comment, concerns the authenticity and meaning of a statement — allegedly picked up by the Mauritanian Al Akhbar agency — that AQIM has invited Western oil companies to negotiate with them to ensure the safety of their employees. In exchange, the oil companies must ‘preserve the dignity and the interests of Muslims.’