Algeria says can refine all crude output by 2015

Algeria will have the capacity by 2015 to refine all the crude oil it produces, Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil said on Tuesday.
Khelil, speaking from Vienna where he is attending an OPEC meeting, told Algerian state radio that planned upgrades of existing refineries and the construction of a new plant “will allow us to refine the totality of our oil production by 2015″.

Algeria is the world’s eighth-biggest exporter of crude and produced 85.6 million tonnes of oil in 2008, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy.

Abdelhafid Feghouli, the acting chief executive of state energy firm Sonatrach, said last month that the output of Algeria’s refineries would grow to 40 million tonnes a year by 2016, from 26 million tonnes now.

Algeria is to start construction soon on a new refinery at Tiaret, in the west of the country, and is carrying out work at several existing refineries to improve their capacity.