Oil and gas giant, Shell, has officially informed the Tunisian Ministry of Energy Transition of its decision to hand over the Miskar concession (Gabes) upon the license expiry in June 2022, and also requested an early return of the Asdrubal (Sfax) license in 2022, before its expiration in 2035.
This was made known by the Director-General of Hydrocarbons at the Ministry, Ben Dali, on Wednesday, 5thMay 2021.
He said: “The company said it wishes to give up oil and gas exploration and production activities. It could return to Tunisia to invest in alternative energy.”
However, the company’s “Vivo” service stations will continue to operate in Tunisia.
Shell has two gas concessions in Tunisia: 100% of the Miskar field and 50% of the Hasdrubal field, jointly with ETAP. The two fields provide about 60% of the national gas production in Tunisia.
Shell has been present in Tunisia for almost 90 years. In 2011, it sold its downstream business but continued upstream exploration. With the acquisition of BG Group in 2016, Shell became the owner of producing offshore gas fields and their supporting facilities, a liquefied petroleum gas extraction plant, pipelines, storage, and export terminals.
