Gassi Touil is a large natural gas field in the
Sahara Desert
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, photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972
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region of
Grand Erg Oriental
The Grand Erg Oriental (English: 'Great Eastern Sand Sea') is a large ''erg'' or "field of sand dunes" in the Sahara Desert. Situated for the most part in Saharan lowlands of northeast Algeria, the Grand Erg Oriental covers an area some 600 k ...
of
Algeria
)
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, within the commune of
Hassi Messaoud
Hassi Messaoud ( ar, حاسي مسعود) is a town in Ouargla Province, eastern Algeria, located southeast of Ouargla. As of 2008 it had a population of 45,147 people, up from 40,360 in 1998, and an annual population growth rate of 1.1%, the lowe ...
. It is an outlying part of the
Berkine Basin, itself a region of the
Ghadames Basin
Ghadames or Ghadamis (Berber: ''ʕadémis''; ar, غدامس, Libyan vernacular: ''ɣdāməs'', Latin: ''Cidamus, Cydamus'', it, Gadames) is an oasis Berber town in the Nalut District of the Tripolitania region in northwestern Libya.
The ind ...
that extends into
Tunisia
)
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, map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa
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. The land surface is dominated by extensive sand dune fields.
Gassi Touil is the site of a major
liquefied natural gas
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volu ...
development project, in which natural gas extracted from the Gassi Touil field will be piped to a liquefaction plant at Djedid.
The project was initially developed by Spanish firms
Repsol
Repsol S.A.
El Nuevo Herald, 2012-05-31[Originally an init ...]
and
Gas Natural
Naturgy Energy Group S.A''.'', formerly ''Gas Natural Fenosa'' (), is a Spanish multinational natural gas and electrical energy utilities company, which operates primarily in Spain. The company's administrative headquarters are in Barcelona, while ...
, but their contract was terminated in 2007 by the Algerian state oil company
Sonatrach
Sonatrach ( ar, سوناطراك; french: Société Nationale pour la Recherche, la Production, le Transport, la Transformation, et la Commercialisation des Hydrocarbures) is the national state-owned oil company of Algeria. Founded in 1963, it is ...
, which elected to pursue the project on its own.
On November 6, 1961, a gas well fire broke out at Gassi Touil, becoming known as the
Devil's Cigarette Lighter
The Devil's Cigarette Lighter was a natural gas well fire at Gassi Touil in the Sahara Desert of Algeria. Ignited by static electricity when a pipe at the GT2 well ruptured on November 6, 1961, the Phillips Petroleum Company/OMNIREX/COPEFA-owned we ...
. It was finally extinguished on April 28, 1962, by well fire specialist