State oil company Sonatrachon 2 July announced that it would look to expand exploration activity beyond Algeria with the aim of increasing reserves by 20 per cent and becoming one of the world's biggest oil companies. 'Sonatrach is pursuing a change in strategy,' chief executive Djamel Eddine Khene told a conference in Paris. 'It does not want to be limited to one source of hydrocarbons, as reliable and promising as they may be -Sonatrach wants to become a great discoverer of hydrocarbons, with the aim of a substantial reserve portfolio and to join the top ten international oil companies.' Strategy director Fatma-Zohra Benoughlis said that the international portfolio would be constructed either through acquisitions of holdings or via the exchange of upstream assets.