Issaouane Erg with foreign assistance, including from Korea and Spain (Repsol signed an agreement to invest and explore in 1990). The oilfield has been in production since late 1998. Issaouane Erg The Issaouane Erg (also called Issaouane-N-Irrararene) is an approximately 38,000 km erg (sand sea) in Algeria's portion of the Sahara desert, located at . The Issaouane Erg is located near the Ahaggar Mountains. It is part of a major dune field that extends from Issaouane Erg in the north to the Sudanese Erg in the south, flanked by the Libyan erg of Murzuq. In the north, the Issaouane Erg ends at
Grand Erg Oriental of the Sahara is probably As-Sahra al-Libiyah, which straddles the inland border of Libya and Egypt. Erg is a Tamachek Berber word, and also a geographic term of art. The Grand Erg Oriental used to be associated with the Wadi Igharghar, a mostly dry and buried river with a sizable network of tributaries which, should it possess any water, would flow north into the erg from the Ahaggar mountains of the central Sahara. Yet such dry, anciently-made river beds, lying seemingly useless beneath the desert sands, can preserve the infrequent rain water, by carrying it off underground and so rescue