BRUSELAS, 5 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The European Commission has given the green light this Monday to the entry of the Italian energy company ENI into a natural gas exploration and production project in Algeria together with the Algerian state oil company, Sonatrach, and the Norwegian Equinor ASA, after concluding that the operation will not have a negative impact on the European economic area.

In this way, ENI will be integrated into the participation of the In Salah project, created in 1996 as a joint venture between Sonatrach and BP, which was joined in 2004 by Equinor. The entry of ENI supposes the relief of BP as a shareholder in the business of exploration and production ('upstream') of natural gas in Algeria.

The community services consider that the operation does not raise competition concerns because it is unlikely that, given their different interests, the companies will be able to coordinate thanks to this alliance in the market for the development, production and wholesale supply of natural gas.

Eni, Sonatrach and Equinor are actively involved in the upstream development, production and wholesale supply of natural gas, although the Italian group is also active in the natural gas wholesale and transportation infrastructure markets in Italy, according to The Community Executive has recalled in a statement.

The file, which was notified to Brussels on October 26, has been examined under the ordinary procedure that is applied to less problematic cases.