The Hassi R'Mel Gas Field is the largest gas field in Algeria and one of the largest gas fields in the world. It is located in the vicinity of Hassi R'Mel

Hassi R'mel

Hassi R'Mel is a town in Algeria located near the 18th largest gas field worldwide. Hassi R'Mel is located in Laghouat Province northwest of Ghardaïa. It is the capital of Hassi R'Mel District. Hass R'Mel has an airport....

 village, 550 kilometres (341.8 mi) south of Algiers. The gas field extends 70 kilometres (43.5 mi) from north to south and 50 kilometres (31.1 mi) from east to west.

The gas field was discovered in 1956 along with the giant oilfield of Hassi Messaoud

Hassi Messaoud

Hassi Messaoud is a town in Ouargla province, southeast Algeria, north Africa. Oil was discovered there in 1956 and the town's prominence has grown rapidly since then. It is an oil refinery town named after the first oil well. A water well, dug in 1917, can be found on the airport side of town...

. Production started in 1961. Its recoverable reserves have been estimated at 2.415 trillion cubic meter of natural gas, and probable reserves at 2.7-3 trillion cubic meter. The annual producing capacity is around 100 billion cubic meter of natural gas. The field produces from a Triassic

Triassic

The Triassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about 250 to 200 Mya . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic. Both the start and end of the Triassic are marked by major extinction events...

 formation.

Natural gas from the Hassi R'Mel gas field is transported to coastal cities of Arzew

Arzew

Arzew or Arzeu is a port city in Algeria, from Oran. It is the capital of Arzew District, Oran Province.-Antiquity:Like the rest of North Africa, the site of modern-day Arzew was originally inhabited by the Berbers...

, Algiers

Algiers

' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...

, and Skikda

Skikda

Skikda is a city in north eastern Algeria and a port on the Gulf of Stora, the ancient Sinus Numidicus. It was known as Philippeville until the end of the Algerian War of Independence in 1962...

. It supplies export pipelines such as the Maghreb-Europe

Maghreb-Europe Gas Pipeline

The Maghreb–Europe Gas Pipeline is a natural gas pipeline, which links the Hassi R'mel field in Algeria through Morocco with Cordoba in Andalusia, Spain, where it is connected with the Spanish and Portuguese gas grids...

, Trans-Mediterranean

Trans-Mediterranean Pipeline

The Trans-Mediterranean Pipeline is a natural gas pipeline from Algeria via Tunisia to Sicily and thence to mainland Italy. An extension of the TransMed pipeline delivers Algerian gas to Slovenia.-History:...

, Medgaz

Medgaz

Medgaz is a submarine natural gas pipeline between Algeria and Spain.-History:The idea of building a direct gas pipeline between Algeria and Europe arose in the 1970s. However, the technical limitations at that time prevented the construction and operation of an ultra deepwater gas pipeline...

 and Galsi

Galsi

Galsi may refer to:* Galsi, Bardhaman, a town in West Bengal, India* GALSI, a planned Algeria-Sardinia-Italy natural gas pipe line...

pipelines to Southern Europe.