Boeing wins $332 mil in orders from Tassili Air

Boeing Co. and Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA won orders valued at more than $332 million from the Algerian carrier Tassili Airlines, a division of the state- run oil and gas company Sonatrach.

Boeing will supply four 150-seat 737-800s in a contract valued at more than $228 million, Tassili said today at a press conference in Algiers, where it’s based. Brazil’s Embraer will provide three 100-seat E-190s valued at more than $104 million.

The planemakers beat out bids from Europe’s Airbus SAS and Canada’s Bombardier Inc., Tassili Chief Executive Officer Hocine Chekired said in an interview. The carrier didn’t award contracts for two 70-seat planes, rejecting bids for those aircraft, Chekired said.

The 11-year-old airline specializes in the transport of oil and gas personnel in Algeria and has a fleet of 20 planes that feature four to 74 seats, according to its Web site. The company said in 2006 it aimed to spend $1 billion buying 41 planes by 2010 to expand its operations to general domestic transport. Algeria is Africa’s second-largest nation by land area, behind Sudan.

Chicago-based Boeing fell 48 cents to $40.35 at 2:09 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Embraer, based in Sao Jose dos Campos, fell 2.8 percent to 7.78 reais in Sao Paulo trading.