Tunisia is currently constructing a pipeline that will lessen its dependence on gas imports and reveal the potential of the country’s gas-rich southern region, Interfax News reports.

The Pipeline according to Trent Rehill, president of licence-holder Winstar, when completed will reassure more development of southern Tunisia’s gas resources. The pipeline will allow licence-holders to get buyers for their gas, "We’ve got a number of very attractive drilling targets for gas condensate, but [without] the pipeline we can’t drill those because we can’t commercialize them," said Rehill.

The route of the pipeline is to have a capacity of up to 10 million cm/d and will run 370 km from Nawara in the south of the country to the port city of Gabés forming part of the South Tunisian Gas Pipeline project (STGP), which comprises of a central processing facility at Nawara and a gas treatment plant at Gabés.

The project is a joint-venture between Tunisia’s Entreprise Tunisienne d’Activités Pétrolières (ETAP) and Austria’s OMV with 50% each and is due to be commissioned in 2017.

OMV plans to use the pipeline to supply over 10% of Tunisia’s gas requirements by 2017 and could later increase to 20-25%. About 1/3 of the pipeline’s capacity is to be used to convey OMV’s gas while the remaining capacity will be used by other gas producers that can connect to the pipeline.

Anita Fatunji