Algeria’s state oil company Sonatrach is restructuring in an effort to cut costs in the face of persistently low oil prices, according to company documents seen by the UK-based news agency Reuters.

A new charter will give Sonatrach’s chief executive, Amine Mazouzi, four new assistants who will each take charge of a different sector. The sectors are downstream, upstream, transport and pipelines, and commercial.

“The evolving domestic and external environment obliges us to adapt our organisation… so we can meet our goals that are to increase production and reserves,” Mazouzi said in the document, which is dated 12 October.

Mazouzi said Sonatrach should base its work on a “strategy to reduce costs”.

With declining hydrocarbon production and limited financial reserves, Algeria was one of the Opec members that was least prepared for the drop in oil prices that started in the second half of last year.

Algeria relies on hydrocarbons for more than 90 per cent of exports, and about 60 per cent of government revenues.