ALGIERS, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Algeria aims to achieve self-sufficiency in fuels by the end of 2019 at the latest, Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour, the CEO of state-run energy giant Sonatrach said Wednesday.
The company will finish renovating the refinery in Sidi R'cine in southern Algiers by the end of the year or early next year and then launch another refinery project in the largest oil region of Hassi Messaoud in the desert, he said.
Ould Kaddour said the tender for Hassi Messaoud refinery has been launched and bids will be open next week, specifying that it is expected to output five million tons per year by end 2019.
He further said that the 10 million-tone-capacity refinery that Sonatrach has acquired in Augusta in Sicily, Italy from U.S. group of ExxonMobil should be official owned by the company by late 2018.
"With the refineries of Augusta, Sidi R'cine and Hassi Messaoud, we would largely meet our domestic needs," said the chief of Sonatrach.
The program will meet the rising domestic demand for petroleum products as the North African nation's fuels consumption has been increasing by an average of 7 percent annually over the past 10 years.
Despite the fact that Algeria is an oil producing and exporting country, its refineries failed to meet local demand, while forced to recourse to imports.
Currently, Algeria imports 12.23 million tons of diesel and 9 million tons of gasoline, while local refineries produce only 11.5 million tons of fuel.
According to Sonatrach's figures, Algeria imported between 2011 and 2017 16 billion U.S. dollars worth fuels.