Now Hassi Messaoud is a town with more than 60,000 inhabitants (non official source), without counting those living in the oil and gas company bases.

The town contains several bases for the oil and gas companies, where Algerian and foreign people are working and living.

[4] In 2010 Amnesty International reported that mob attacks against single women accused of being prostitutes were taking place in Hassi Messaoud.

Sand storms are common before summer time (from March to June), lasting from 6 hours to 4 days.

Hassi Messaoud lies on the N3 national highway between Touggourt and Biskra to the north and Illizi and Djanet to the south.

The commune is composed of seven localities:[10] The Hassi Messaoud oil field is a Cambrian sandstone reservoir 270 m thick in a dome 3300 m deep and 1300 km2 in area of the Oued Mya structural basin.

[12] The top of the dome is marked by an unconformity at the base of the Triassic, Mesozoic sediments consisting of salt, anhydrite, shale, limestone, dolomite and marl, all overlain by Mio-Pliocene sandstone.