Niger's Ministry of Petroleum is hosting experts from the Algerian agency ALNAFT from 26 to 30 October to review its management of oil and gas data, the Nigerien Press Agency reported in a dispatch dated 27 October.
The review covers equipment, software, staff and the security of information. The experts are to propose a technical and financial roadmap to modernise the National Petroleum Data Bank. It is therefore a diagnosis, with recommendations still awaited.
This mission follows technical exchanges already under way. In a statement of 10 May, Sonatrach said Nigerien engineers had visited ALNAFT's data centre and that of its Production division in Algiers. The programme of the visit also included stages devoted to seismic data, laboratories and the preservation of rock samples.
The Nigerien government later reported, on 21 May, a bilateral meeting devoted in particular to sharing experience in managing oil and environmental data. Cooperation also covered training, refining and drilling, with Algerian technical support envisaged at several links of the sector.