China’s Zhongman Petroleum and Natural Gas Group (ZPEC) said it won a tender to explore and develop a natural gas block in Algeria under a production sharing contract, marking the company’s first hydrocarbon exploration in Africa.
The Shanghai-listed independent oil and gas explorer was awarded the contract by Algeria’s National Agency for the Valorization of Hydrocarbon Resources (ALNAFT) to explore the Zerafa II block in central part of the country, ZPEC said late on Wednesday on its official WeChat platform.
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ZPEC said it outbid global major TotalEnergies and a consortium of Italy’s ENI and Norway’s Equinor for the Zerafa II block.
The block, covering 38,697.73 square kilometers, sits in the southern part of Algeria’s main gas-bearing Gourara-Timimoun basin.
ZPEC did not disclose investment value and said the final contract remains unsigned.
ZPEC, one of China’s small group of independent oil and gas companies, operates in China’s Xinjiang region and Kazakhstan. Last year the company won rights to exploration blocks in Iraq.
