Word: messaoud
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Algiers, Bōne, Oran and the villages on the oil route to Hassi Messaoud are booming. From Algiers to Bordj-bou-Arréridj (a town in an area where the rebels are still active), the highway thunders with big trucks carrying pipeline equipment. A year ago, from Palestro onward-the rebel zone-the same road was almost deserted. The astonishing thing now is that mingling with the steady stream of trucks are families, both European and Moslem, in private cars, ignoring the charred remains of a car by the roadside and taking in stride the signs warning motorists...
...French had gone to considerable trouble and expense to make the celebration possible. Sahara oil has become one of France's main reasons for refusing to yield war-torn Algeria. Politicians have held it up as treasure trove that would restore France to riches and greatness. The Hassi Messaoud field alone has estimated reserves of at least 200 million metric tons-ten times France's present annual consumption. With two years to wait for a full-sized 24-in. pipeline from the Sahara to the Mediterranean coast, the French strung the baby pipeline across 93 miles of desert...
Three huge derricks have gone up on a 17-square-mile triangle at Hassi Messaoud, and high-grade oil has been penetrated in a 450-ft.-thick layer at 12,500 ft. Estimated capacity of the field: 300 million tons (15 times France's yearly petrol consumption). It is planned to have 20 wells operating by the end of 1958. The excitement of bringing in the big "bear cats" does not disturb the calm of the bespectacled chief engineer, Christian Redron, who wears nothing but khaki shorts and sandals on a skinny frame burned to leather...
Mountaintop Threats. The bare-bosomed Blue Bell girls are safe from the sunburn of the Sahara this year: getting the oil from Hassi Messaoud through the rebel country to the Mediterranean seaboard is practically impossible. In the desert, where no man can hide from the hovering helicopter, there is no trouble from the rebel fellagha, but the wild Atlas Mountains, which bar all routes northward from the oilfield, shelter some of the toughest Moslem rebel gangs. On the final 150-mile stretch of the railroad from Oran there have been continuous attacks by rebels for a year. In one night...
...only the oil at Hassi Messaoud is stalled, but that of the recently discovered rich Hassi R'Mel field (estimated reserves 700 million bbl.), only 280 miles from Algiers, and the 20 boreholes in the Edjelé field (capacity 700 million bbl.), where the oil is only 1,350 ft. underground. The same applies to the huge natural-gas reservoir at Djebel Berga (2,000,000 cu. ft. a day) and vast storehouses of industrial metals in other areas of the Sahara (TIME, July 1). Plans for railroads and pipelines tapping these resources and bringing them...