The North African country is looking to attract international companies to an auction of rights to develop oil and gas fields, including those with hard-to-reach tight deposits, Salah Mekmouche, Sonatrach VP of exploration and production, said in an interview with Bloomberg. Alnaft, the country’s petroleum regulator, will organize the bidding round.
 

“We hope that oil prices will rise by then as this will increase the interest of companies in the bidding round even more,” Mekmouche said.
 

“We will end the year 2015 with about the same level of output as last year,” Mekmouche said. “For 2016, we expect an increase in production by at least 5% compared with 2015.”

Source : petroleumafrica.com