II. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS AND RISKS EVALUATION OF OFFSHORE DRILLING
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II.1 Presentation of the study area
II.1.1
Location of the drilling zone
In the southern part of the algerian-provençal basin, at the level of the marine zone which
extends from the wilaya of Skikda to the wilaya of Annaba, the perimeter of offshore oil
drilling is located 20km from the coast on average. This area is characterized by important
urban, industrial and port activities. According to the oil drilling program, the exploration
block is located in coastal waters about 42km from the mainland where the depth of the
water column is on average 130 to 500 m, this perimeter is presented below as well as the
delimitation of the monitoring area with seismic data (Fig 11).
II.1.2 Characteristics of Skikda’s coastline
The wilaya of Skikda is located in the northeast of Algeria between 36°05' and 36°15'N
latitude and 7°15' and 7°30'E longitude, covering a total area of 4137.68 km² , between the
Tell Atlas and the Mediterranean Sea to the North. It is bounded to the east by the wilaya of
Annaba, to the west by the wilaya of Jijel, to the south by Constantine and Guelma, and to
the southwest by Mila.
The Gulf of Skikda, also called "Stora", is located between Cape Bougaroun to the west and
Cape Fer to the east over a length of 146.7 km (Fig 12).
Figure 11: Location of the offshore drilling perimeter