Desert Massacre Threatens Africa’s Largest Gas Industry: Energy

The killing of foreign workers in the Algerian desert threatens production from North Africa’s largest oil and gas industry, the main source of revenue for a country that avoided unrest when the Arab spring swept away regimes across the region.

Yesterday’s bloody action to end a hostage-taking by Islamist rebels at a BP Plc-operated natural gas field supplying 12 percent of Algeria’s output will make foreign explorers wary about working in the country, said Ahmed Amdimi, a professor of political science at the University of Algiers. Spain’s Cia. Espanola de Petroleos SA, Statoil ASA and BP yesterday became the first oil companies to evacuate workers.