(Yicai) July 10 -- Shares of Jereh Oilfield Services Group rose after the private Chinese oil exploration engineering service provider said its subsidiary has secured a construction contract for a natural gas field infrastructure project worth USD855 million.

Jereh [SHE: 002353] jumped 3.7 percent to CNY35.19 (USD4.90) a share as of 2.10 p.m. in Shenzhen today, after earlier surging by as much as 5.4 percent.

Jereh Oil & Gas Engineering will build a natural gas booster station in the Rhourde Nouss gas field in southeastern Algeria and upgrade and renovate related transmission pipelines, the Yantai-based parent firm announced yesterday, citing an award letter by project owner Sonatrach SPA. The deal will boost the company's market expansion in the oil and gas engineering service sector in North Africa, it added.

The Rhourde Nouss Boosting Project will centralize the boosting of natural gas produced by the gas field and the adjacent Gassi Touil gas field to improve their production efficiency and natural gas processing capacity, Jereh noted.

Sonatrach, the largest oil company in Africa and the largest state-owned firm in Algeria, will pay USD629.1 million and DZD29.4 billion (USD226 million) for the construction of the project, Jereh said, without disclosing further details.

Winning the bit marks a further expansion of Jereh's oil and gas engineering services business in North Africa, helping to enhance the recognition of its local project execution and delivery capabilities and consolidate and expand its brand influence in the onshore oil and gas engineering services markets of North Africa and the Middle East, according to the company.

Jereh has been expanding overseas in recent years, establishing long-term alliances with major Middle Eastern oil and gas clients, including Saudi Arabian Oil Company, Abu Dhabi National Oil, and Kuwait National Petroleum.

Editor: Martin Kadiv