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OSLO/LONDON, March 21 (Reuters) - BP and Norway'sStatoil will withdraw staff from two gas plants inAlgeria after an attack by militants on one of the sites in theNorth African country, the companies said on Monday.
Militants attacked the In Salah gas plant, operated withstate-owned Sonatrach, with rockets on Friday, causing nocasualties or damage. Al Qaeda's North Africa branch claimedresponsibility for the attack.
Algeria's energy infrastructure has been heavily protectedby the army, especially since a 2013 attack on the In Amenas gasplant, also operated by BP and Statoil, during which 40 oilworkers were killed.
"BP has decided to undertake a phased temporary relocationof all its staff from the In Salah Gas and In Amenas JVs inAlgeria over the next two weeks. This decision has been taken asa precautionary measure," the British firm said in a statement.
Statoil said it would also withdraw staff from the In Salahand In Amenas plants, together with staff from its operationscentre at Hassi Messaoud.
"It will happen over the next few weeks. Those who are onrotation now will not be replaced when they finish theirshifts," a Statoil spokesman said, declining to say for securityreasons how many employees would be affected.
"It's only been four days since shots were fired at InSalah. The production started again, but in the currentsituation we believe that this is the right decision to make," the spokesman added.
According to BP's website, In Salah started production in2004 from the Krechba, Teguentour and Reg fields. In February,it announced the start up of development of the Gour Mahmoud, InSalah, Garet el Befinat and Hassi Moumene fields, to bringoutput to 9 billion cubic metres a year.
Statoil, BP and Sonatrach were due to restart the third andfinal processing train at the In Amenas gas plant, damagedduring the 2013 attack, later this year.
Statoil repeated on Monday the restart of that train wouldstill happen "in the coming months". (Reporting by Joachim Dagenborg and Camilla Knudsen in Oslo andRon Bousso in London, writing by Gwladys Fouche; editing bySusan Thomas)
