Work is due to restart on a $1.2bn gas development on the In Salah field in the southeast after a year’s hiatus, according to a source close to the project.

Development work on the In Salah gas field, operated by a joint venture of the UK’s BP, Norway’s Statoil and state energy company Sonatrach, is due to resume “any time now,” says the source.

Onsite work was suspended on the In Salah project following a terrorist attack on the In Amenas gas project, operated by the same three companies, on 16 January 2013 in which 40 workers were killed.

The In Salah scheme involves the development of four fields in the south of the In Salah concession: Garet el-Befinat, Hassi Moumene, In Salah and Gour Mohmoud. The scope includes the construction of a central production facility with two dehydration trains, about 300 kilometres of gas collection pipelines and the provision of permanent camp facilities. The development will have capacity of 400 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) of gas.

The project also includes modifications work on existing facilities on the In Salah development at Reg. These include upgrades to compression facilities and the the addition of a dehydration train.

Petrofac won the engineering, procurement and contruction contract on the estimated $1.2bn project in early 2011. Petrofac staff were evacuated from the site following the terrorist attack on the In Amenas gas field in January 2013. Staff from the company are now working on the site, but only on a daytime basis.

According to a statement by Petrofac in mid-2013, the company expected to begin full operations on the project in the second half of 2013. Work was originally expected to take a total of 50 months.

The development of the new fields is designed to maintain production capacity from the fields. Reserves in the southern part of the concession are estimated to be about half the size of those currently in production. The In Salah field has production capacity of about 9 billion cubic metres a year (cm/y) of gas. BP has a 33.15 per cent stake in the In Salah project, with Statoil owning 31.85 per cent and Sonatrach 35 per cent.