(The solution for Algeria would be perhaps to stop the gas exports and contract, with Chinese companies, massive fields of solar panels in the desert to sell cheap, renewable electricity without CO2 or methane to Europe. Perhaps they could even put cables through the pipelines to Spain and Italy. But in the real world its the fossil fuel companies that still have the power….)

Algeria’s dilemma is partly that: it is already totally dependent on exporting its non-renewable resources; that when exporting more the price drops even more in a saturated market; and that it is contributing a lot in destroying the delicate balance of climate that can leave the planet unlivable for thousands of years.

TOTAL is in Algeria for lootng its non-renewable resources as quickly as possible. It apparently refuses to comment if it does fracking or not. But it also denied that its temporary expulsion from Algeria in 2015 had something to do with the anti-fracking protests of the same year. The Algerian government meanwhile is desperately trying to further increase its gas and oil exports to pay its debts and have enough gas for its population that is growing very quickly and lacks everything.

Further information in tech journals confirms that Timimoun, Ahnet, Touat and Reggane are precisely the best fields of ‘Tight Gas’, which according to Wikipedia must be extracted by fracking and will be the first to be exploited.

Both Algeria and France would have reasons to hide the fracking, Algeria due to the anti-fracking uprising of 2015 that almost reached the civil war, and France because there fracking is prohibited and for its colonial crimes in Algeria.

Then we received this scandalous news from France; (see below), (also only revealed in Spain by an activist who watches the French press with Google translation!) That a member of Parliament has denounced, indirectly and without giving details, that France already secretly practices fracking in Algeria.

But then came another report that fracking would take time to organize and the extraction in Timimoun, Ahnet and Reggane, (which starts already in April 2018 with 40 wells only in Timimoun) by TOTAL, CEPSA, and Sonatrach, will be by conventional methods, and that only by chance was it announced along with the news that fracking will begin. (But TOTAL has explored and developed these places for decades and in the US a fracking drill is assembled in a matter of weeks.)

We have published an article ” Algeria Green-lights climate-lethal Fracking Gas with EU Imperialists TOTAL and CEPSA, 18 Jan 2018 ” detailing the decision of the Algerian government to renounce the ban on fracking. We included the news that fracking would start at the Timimoun gas field in the south west desert.

Fracking in the Sahara is a nightmare because it lacks an average of 16.65 million liters of water for each of thousands of perforations. And because of the danger of contaminating groundwater in the aquifer that gives life to all the mega-desert oases.

And the Spanish government has announced several times that the new controversial Midcat gas pipeline would serve to ‘export gas from Algeria to France’.

Scandal in France, a deputy accuses the government of secretly allowing fracking in its ex colony of Algeria. If France really is fracking in Algeria, the gas would be twice as harmful to our climate emergency as coal. And if the new gas pipeline from Timimoun built by TOTAL brings this gas to the general gas network, it would also reach the two gas pipelines that supply two thirds of Iberia’s gas (22 bcm).

Muriel Ressiguier, French MP in the French National Assembly has, in a written question she asked on Tuesday, January 23, to the Minister of Ecological Transition and Solidarity, said that Algeria already operates shale (fracking) gas. The question concerns the South Transit East Pyrenees Pipeline Project (STEP), which is expected to connect Spain to the south of France as part of the European Large Energy Market Project. According to Mrs. Ressigier opposed to the project, the gas pipeline would be used to transport shale gas, mainly from Algeria. “The gas expected to pass in this pipe will come mainly from Algeria and this country has the 3rd world reserve estimated of unconventional gas. As the minister knows, gas extraction is already taking place in Algeria through hydraulic fracturing, “writes France’s Insoumise de l’Hérault. The MEP calls on the French government to “consider the abandonment or moratorium of this new anti-ecological project”, because for her it would be unacceptable that “the countries of the European Union do not allow them to extract shale gas because of the multiple risks that it entails turn to Algeria to produce it, letting the country bear the risks and ecological aberrations that are linked to this type of extraction.

Saturday, January 27, 2018 – 18:28

Scandal: despite assurances from the Algerian government,,

http://www.lematindalgerie.com/lalgerie-exploiterait-secretement-les-gaz-de-schiste-par-fracturation-hydraulique

A French MP Ms. Muriel Ressiguier, in a written question, told the government of her country that Algeria is already exploiting shale gas by the controversial method of hydraulic fracturing of rocks, with the aim of exporting it to France via a South Transist East Pyrenees Pipeline Project (STEP). The question is “on the contradictions between the implementation of the South Transist East Pyrenees Pipeline Project (STEP), France’s objectives towards the necessary ecological transition and the question of North / South relations which should be in line with the principles of cooperation. both in terms of solidarity and ecology. “, Could read on the Facebook page of the Herault de France member insubordinate.

“But the gas planned to pass in this pipe will come mainly from Algeria and this country has the 3rd world reserve estimated of unconventional gas. As you know, gas extraction is already taking place in Algeria through hydraulic fracturing. It can not be acceptable that the countries of the European Community that do not allow the extraction of shale gas at home because of the multiple risks that this entails turn to Algeria to produce it, allowing the country to bear the risks and ecological aberrations linked to this type of extraction (in particular the pollution of groundwater in regions where there is a lack of water)! “Muriel Ressiguier is indignant. “This goes against North / South cooperation relationships as we need to design and build them: respectful, supportive, economically, socially and environmentally responsible. “, Concludes the member of France rebellious.

If this information is confirmed, it would mean that the unrelenting struggles of the people of southern Algeria have been swept away by secret and bureaucratic decisions of the government, thus defying the will of the people not to suffer the horrors of groundwater pollution in the South of the country. The government of this autocracy that has become Algeria, must at least provide explanations on this umpteenth scandal, the Bouteflika era, looming on the horizon.