Speech by the Chief Executive Officer at the New Year 2012 greetings ceremony

Address by the Chief Executive Officer of Sonatrach.

Dear Colleagues,
It is particularly pleasant for me, on the occasion of New Year 2012, to present to you and your families my best wishes for health, happiness, peace, success and prosperity. I take this opportunity to pay a deeply felt tribute to all those who left us, who passed away and retired, particularly for their fidelity and loyalty to our Company. I seize this happy occasion to tell you how touched I was by the many messages I have received and continue to receive, with great pleasure, from colleagues whom I thank warmly and ask to excuse me for not being able to answer them individually.

Year 2011 ended on good operational and financial performances achieved in an international context characterized by an economic recession. These results were obtained through the commendable efforts of the whole of the Sonatrach Group’s staff, with their great mobilization and commitment, which, I am sure, will allow us to get 2012 off to a good start.
Sonatrach celebrated on last December 31st the 48th anniversary of its creation. We hold in high respect and consideration all the women and men, who have been with Sonatrach since it was founded, for their commitment in the interest of the Nation, their achievements and legacy.

Since then, Sonatrach has been able to grow constantly and judiciously exploited the capacities of its women and men, including their skills and experience to address various challenges. Thus, I pledge today to do the same, if not more so. We will always remain attentive to our staff concerns and will try to establish and promote dialogue as a strategic axis of our approach. Every effort will be made to reinforce our human resources and reversing their loss. There are many things to be reviewed.

Dear colleagues,
In this New Year 2012, Sonatrach is at a crucial stage of its development and is building on the achievements of the past and on working all together to meet new challenges.
We indeed have great development projects which we included in the 2012 - 2016 medium-term plan examined and adopted last Thursday by the General Meeting. These major works should be completed on time and with the quality required to achieve the strategic objectives laid down by our sole shareholder, the State, in order to allow Sonatrach to contribute, as usual, to national economic growth.  

In this regard, we identified actions which are a priority and the best possible guarantees should be made available for this purpose:
- We should first intensify our prospection and exploration efforts, not only in known basins, but also in the South-West, the North of the country and the offshore. Such efforts will not be limited to the sole conventional hydrocarbons but also to nonconventional hydrocarbons.
- The second priority for Sonatrach is to build a new, high-level petrochemical base to further exploit our traditional gas, LPG and condensate resources in order to meet a constantly growing national demand and position itself in the value chain of this segment of activity. An adapted reorganization will emerge in the very short term.
- Third, we should reinforce our capacities in the field of oil services, new techniques and technologies have emerged and our skills in drilling, geophysics and oil services must be adapted. For this reason, we will give a particular importance to training, study, research and engineering activities in order to increase the integration of our national resources.
- We should also work to continuously improving our production equipment. We should give our facilities better standards of maintenance to account for the industrial risk and ensure them a longer lifespan.
The transport activity should be more focused on a sustained works rehabilitation program.
The refining activity should make every effort to complete ongoing projects in order to allow, at the earliest, for less oil products imports, for the obvious reasons we know.
- Also, and it is the fifth priority, we will have to pay a particular importance to the improvement of our internal management process in all its tracks, by a revision of our procedures, a measured decentralization and a regular ex post control. Reorganization will be adapted and gradual, in consultation with all those who are concerned.

Dear colleagues,
Our major development projects will require from all of us further efforts at work, the mobilization of our skills, anticipation, cohesion and solidarity as the economic crisis facing the international environment makes it evolve very quickly and the expectations of the country regarding Sonatrach remain high.
The whole of Sonatrach’s Group, at their respective levels of contribution, is involved in the achievement of our objectives, hence the paramount importance that is and should be paid to our Company’s human resources. It is therefore important and necessary to provide a serene working environment characterized by a good communication and a permanent dialogue between workers and Senior Management, acting as a federator and generating the necessary consensus. The role of our social partner to facilitate and maintain this dialogue will be very important in this respect and we will make sure to give him all necessary assistance in the self-interest of the workers, all workers without exception.
I remain convinced that Sonatrach has the means to continue to grow further in the global oil industry, to adapt to its changes and to preserve and consolidate its positions. Duty calls us and we must resolutely work on it by tapping into our creativity, our courage and our perseverance.

Confident in your capacities and sure of your unwavering commitment towards the continuous development of our great Group, I reiterate to all of you my best wishes for a happy and successful year, each one in his profession and his position.
With my special regards to all your families.
Happy New Year 2012 to all of you.