Newsletter No. 677
News-Analysis
July 15, 2007

 

AN ALGERIAN-JAPANESE JOINT VENTURE ON A HUGE OIL TANKER

Reuters is reporting about an Algerian-Japanese joint venture to finance the construction of a crude oil tanker. This tanker will have a capacity of 2 million tons and is expected to service Asian markets. The two partners will each have a 50% share. On the Algerian side the partner is Sonatrach and on the Japanese side it is the Kawasaki Shipbuilding Corporation. The Mizuho Financial Group has offered a US$96.3 million loan to the venture, which goes under the name New Ocean Shipping Venture Limited.

Photo: The Japanese-built tanker Rhourd Enouss at its arrival in Algiers in December 2004
Source: Sonatrach website

This is not the first deal between Sonatrach and the Kawasaki Shipbuilding Corporation. In fact, five of the six tankers currently in the Sonatrach Petroleum Corporation’s fleet were built by this Japanese company. For example, Kawasaki won a US$150 million contract from Sonatrach in October 2002, and three tankers (the Alrar, the Rhourd Enouss, the Hassi Messaoud II) were delivered to the Algerians in 2004 and 2005.

The New Ocean Shipping Venture Limited partnership was set up on June 13, 2006.

FRENCH-JAPANESE WRITER TAKES AN INTEREST IN ALGERIAN TUAREGS

Kyodo News produced the rather odd story that we have placed below about a French-Japanese writer and her project to help Tuaregs through a kind of camel-adoption program. Her website has sections in English, Japanese, and French:

http://sahara-eliki.org

Aside from Algeria, she has also posted material on Niger and Mali.

Buy a Camel, Help a Nomad
By Jun Shimazaki
Kyodo News

For anyone with a yen to help out financially strapped Algerian nomads, now's your chance.

Alissa Descotes-Toyosaki, a Japanese-French writer and interpreter living in Paris, is offering a "camel owner plan," through which purchasers lend their beasts to Tuareg nomad camel handlers in southern Algeria. She has already found several French and Japanese buyers, who are allowed to name their animals. Tags dangling from the necks of the Japanese-owned camels identify them as Tanaka, POP and Shunichi.

Photo: A Tuareg inscribes the name “Shunichi” on camel gear
Source: Alissa Descotes-Toyosaki’s “Rakuda Tsushin” website

The 36-year-old daughter of a French father and Japanese mother first became attracted to the Sahara Desert while working as an interpreter. Later, she started writing about the Tuareg, a Berber ethnic group. A male camel costs 300 euro to 450 euro, or about 50,000 yen to 75,000 yen, and a female 250 euro to 350 euro.

After receiving orders, Descotes-Toyosaki said, she buys the animals at a camel market and lends them to Tuareg camel handlers in the Djanet Oasis in southeastern Algeria. They look after the animals, and the money they earn is used to feed it, as well as themselves and their families. She bought six camels last December in Niger and walked about 900 km with them across the desert back to Algeria. She has also bought a camel in Djanet.

Descotes-Toyosaki said that in addition to giving their favorite names to camels, the owners can keep in touch and find out how their camels are doing on the website Rakuda Tsushin (Camel Communication). They can also visit Algeria and tour the desert atop their camels.

The number of camels has been on the decline recently at Djanet, and the nomads are out of work except during the tourism season from autumn to spring. There have been reports that some have become migrant workers or dabbled in smuggling.