Algeria’s energy exports are plunging, threatening more financial suffering for the OPEC member and a potential repeat of the mass demonstrations that toppled the president two years ago.

North African countries are suffering from oil and gas shipments – the economy is booming – due to years of mismanagement and a lack of investment. The decline is so severe that Algeria will become a crude exporter within a decade, said Sheriff Belmihaub, the minister in charge of economic forecasting.

“Algeria is no longer an oil country,” he told state radio last month.

The benchmark Brent crude rose above $ 60 a barrel on Monday for more than a year, but according to the International Monetary Fund, it is less than half the price to balance the Algerian budget. The IMF calculates that its revenue break-even is ১৩ 135 per barrel

“The Algerian leadership is relentlessly beating,” said Jalel Harchaui, a senior fellow at the non-governmental organization Geneva-based Global Initiative. “For the first time in almost two decades, Algeria will have to make politically painful and symbolically charged decisions to find the dollar.”