Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has officially authorized the launch of exploitation and exploration of the country’s immense shale gas reserves. But if this green light arouses enthusiasm in economic circles, it raises, on the other hand, deep anxiety in security circles in the country. Indeed, the Algerian security services did not recommend this option at all, which they considered dangerous and highly detrimental to the stability of Algeria, particularly due to the popular anger that it risks provoking among the populations. from the south of the country in the wilaya of Adrar, in the far south of the country.
According to our sources, the various Algerian security services are unanimous in affirming that the launch of shale gas exploitation in the wilayas of southern Algeria will be very poorly received by the populations of these regions who greatly fear the catastrophic environmental impact. including the risk to groundwater in these regions due to the use of chemical components necessary for shale gas exploitation techniques. The various Algerian security reports written on this subject and addressed to the supreme authorities of the Algerian state predict a high probability of a popular explosion due to the start of exploration work on shale gas deposits in the south of the country.
Clearly, the Algerian security services fear a scenario of popular protest of such great vigor as the popular movement which shook the region of In Salah, in the wilaya of Adrar, and other localities in the country in 2015. In March 2015, protesters set fire to the headquarters of the daïra (sub-prefecture) of In-Salah and the residence of the head of the daïra, part of a police dormitory and a police truck. by violently confronting the police to protest against the work initiated by the Algerian public oil group Sonatrach which had successfully carried out its first pilot drilling in the In-Salah region in December 2014. After the events of In Salah, anti-shale gas demonstrations multiplied in 2015 in several cities in the Algerian Sahara. And this popular protest lasted several months, forcing the Bouteflika regime at the time to suspend the exploration of shale gas reserves.
Today, the Algerian security services fear the reproduction of this same scenario which shook the south of the country in 2015 because the exploitation of shale gas still remains unpopular among local populations who feel threatened in their own survival by this ambitious economic project. It turns out that Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune did not want to take into account the concerns expressed by his security services, preferring to favor economic reasons to the detriment of security reasons. It should be noted that Algeria had long planned to invest massively in shale gas in order to compensate for the drop in its oil revenues but each time encountered hostility from populations living near the deposits, worried about the consequences of these drillings. on the environment. According to international studies, Algeria has the fourth largest recoverable shale gas reserves in the world, after the United States, China and Argentina.
As a reminder, the Algerian state oil and gas group Sonatrach announced on May 23 that it had signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the American giant ExxonMobil for the development of hydrocarbon resources in two gas fields in southern Algeria.24 May 2024 The two companies plan to “study existing opportunities with a view to developing hydrocarbon resources in the Ahnet basin (south) and the Gourara basin,” Sonatrach said in a press release. These are the two most important and strategic fields containing significant reserves of shale gas.
