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Algeria’s industrial strategy builds momentum

8 July 2025

 

Project activity across Algeria’s energy, industrial and manufacturing sectors is steadily building as the country focuses on a vertically integrated strategy that leverages the exploitation of its natural resources.

The country is making steady progress on projects to extract deposits of gas, lithium, iron and phosphates.

At the same time, it is progressing projects that use these natural resources to produce high-value products within the country, rather than simply exporting the raw materials.

The projects utilising raw materials within Algeria include a wide range of iron and steel processing facilities, fertiliser plants and factories to produce cars.

Upstream gas

Last month, Algeria awarded five out of the six oil and gas exploration licences it offered during its 2024 bidding round, a move viewed as a success by stakeholders in the country’s energy sector.

The companies that were awarded blocks included France’s TotalEnergies, state-owned QatarEnergy, Italy’s Eni and PTTEP of Thailand.

Commenting on the licensing round, one industry source said: “Successfully engaging with large international oil companies that have significant technical and financial resources is a big step forward for Algeria’s oil and gas sector.”

The latest bid round was the first to be held under Law 13-19, Algeria’s current oil and gas investment law, which was issued on 11 December 2019.

The 2019 law replaced a previous law created in 2005, which governed the last bid round in 2014.

During the previous bid round, only four blocks were awarded out of the 31 offered.

If the 2024 bidding round had been unsuccessful like the 2014 bidding round, this would have been a major setback to the country’s oil and gas strategy and raised significant concerns about the suitability of the 2019 law that governs licensing deals.

The latest licensing round was followed by meetings between Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and delegations from US-based oil and gas companies ExxonMobil and Chevron.

Awarding the licences and holding talks with Exxon and Chevron sets the scene for further upstream development projects in Algeria and will potentially boost domestic gas production in the country.

Successfully engaging with large international oil companies that have significant technical and financial resources is a big step forward for Algeria’s oil and gas sector
Industry source

Phosphates push

Extractive projects in Algeria’s mining sector are also making steady progress.

One of the biggest mining projects in the country is the Bled El-Hadba phosphate project, which is estimated to be worth $7bn.

The Bled El-Hadba phosphate mine has over 1.2 billion tonnes of estimated total reserves, including 800 million tonnes of estimated exploitable reserves, making it one of the biggest mines of its kind in the world.

A joint venture deal to develop the project was signed in March 2022 between four Algerian and Chinese companies.

The resulting joint-stock company is called Algerian Chinese Fertilisers Company (ACFC) and the project is expected to ultimately produce 5.4 million tonnes of fertilisers a year from the Bled El-Hadba phosphate mine in the eastern Algerian region of Tebessa.

ACFC was established by the Algerian companies Asmidal and Manadjim El-Djazair (Manal), which own a 56% stake in the company, and the Chinese groups Wuhuan and Tianan, which hold the remaining 44% stake.

Since the deal was signed, the project has seen good progress.

Last month, Saipem was awarded the front-end engineering and design (feed) contract related to the project.

Additionally, the Oued Keberit phosphate production and processing complex, which forms part of the $7bn project and will process phosphates extracted from the mine, is on track to come online in 2027, according to industry sources.

Iron mining

Another key mining project in the country is the Gara Djebilet iron ore mine in Algeria’s western Tindouf province.

The Gara Djebilet mine was commissioned in July 2022, with plans to produce 2 million tonnes a year (t/y) by 2026.

Officials have said they want to boost this to 50 million tonnes of iron ore annually by 2040.

It is expected that boosting production at the facility could require between $7bn and $10bn in investment.

Gara Djebilet is understood to hold the world’s largest iron ore reserves, with an estimated 3.5 billion tonnes at the location, of which around 1.7 billion tonnes are available for exploitation.

The mine is expected to bolster Algeria’s steel industry by reducing the need for iron imports.

Car manufacturing

Low-cost steel is expected to support the country’s expanding automotive sector, which uses steel to produce parts.

In March 2025, Great Wall Motor, one of China’s top 10 car manufacturers, announced plans to build its first factory in Algeria, joining other companies in the country, including Fiat, Peugeot and Kia.

Last November, the Algerian Ministry of Industry & Pharmaceutical Production announced that it had granted permits for six new vehicle manufacturing factories in the country.

In March 2023, the carmaker Stellantis announced plans to spend more than €200m ($213m) to manufacture several Fiat models in Algeria.

The plans involved the construction of a plant, which is yet to come online.

Stellantis stated that it anticipates the plant will generate nearly 2,000 local jobs and have an annual production capacity of 90,000 vehicles upon completion.

Petrochemicals production

Algeria’s growing automotive industry is also expected to use plastics derived from petrochemicals that are produced in the country using Algerian natural gas as a feedstock.

UK-based engineering contractor Petrofac and its partner China Huanqiu Contracting & Engineering Corporation (HQCEC) are currently executing a petrochemicals project in Algeria, which is valued at approximately $1.5bn.

Petrofac and HQCEC signed the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the Algerian petrochemicals project in June 2023.

The project is being developed in the Arzew Industrial Zone to the west of Algiers and the contract was signed with STEP Polymers, a wholly owned subsidiary of Algeria’s state-owned oil and gas company Sonatrach.

When the contract was signed, Petrofac said that its portion of the project was valued at about $1bn.

The project’s scope includes designing and building two major integrated processing units.

It includes the delivery of a new propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit and polypropylene production unit, as well as associated utilities and infrastructure for the site.

It is expected to produce 550,000 tonnes of polypropylene a year.

Additionally, plans are being developed for zinc production projects in the country.

In November last year, Western Mediterranean Zinc (WMZ), an Algerian-Australian joint venture, signed a $336m contract with Sinosteel Equipment & Engineering Company (Sinosteel MECC) to develop the Tala Hamza zinc project in Algeria’s Bejaia Province.

WMZ is a joint venture of Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)-listed Terramin, which has a 49% stake, and Algerian state-owned companies Enterprise Nationale des Produits Miniers Non-Ferreux et des Substances Utiles, which owns 48.5%, and Office National de Recherche Geologique et Miniere, which owns 2.5%.

The project scope included the development of a mine with the capacity to produce two million tonnes a year of zinc and a processing plant with the capacity to process the same volume of material.

It is expected that the production of zinc will support the country’s battery manufacturing industry, which in turn will support the production of electric cars.

Fertiliser focus

The country’s fertiliser sector is expected to expand as phosphate production is ramped up.

Earlier this month, MEED revealed that Sonatrach was developing a project that will expand the country’s fertiliser plant located in Arzew.

Sonatrach has not publicly said when it expects to issue the invitation to bid for the main contract for the project.

The original $2.4bn contract to develop the Arzew fertiliser complex was executed by a joint venture of South Korea’s Daewoo E&C and Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation.

The joint venture won the contract in April 2008 and completed the facility in April 2013.

Steady development

By making steady progress with an integrated strategy that leverages the exploitation of raw materials to support the production of higher-value exports, Algeria is creating an industrial environment that presents significant opportunities for companies across multiple sectors.

If the country’s relative political stability continues, more foreign investors will likely become involved in projects within the country, and the country’s project market will continue to expand.

MEED’s August 2025 report on the Maghreb also includes:

> ECONOMY: Maghreb economies battle trading headwinds
> POWER & WATER: Slow year for Maghreb power and water awards

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Wil Crisp

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    Drones have been adopted on-site to mitigate the risk of working at height

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