Page 13 - AfrOil Week 26 2021

AfrOil POLICY AfrOil

A spokesperson for Karpowership told Reuters projects.
last week that her company intended to appeal “Karpowership SA conducted a robust pub-
against DFFE’s decision. She also asserted that lic participation process, met all South Africa’s
Karpowership had been the target of a “mis- stringent environmental requirements and
information campaign” that had raised undue is confident that it will win the appeal,” she
concerns about the risks of the LNG-to-power declared. ™

PROJECTS & COMPANIES
ExxonMobil confirms Mauritania exit

MAURITANIA EXXONMOBIL (US) is planning to exit Mauri- in May 2019. Later in the same year, it began
tania, where it has exploration licences for three collecting 2-D and 3-D seismic data from the
offshore blocks known as C-14, C-17 and C-22. blocks for the exploration phase of the project.
Ibrahim Diagana, the director of public rela- The licence areas are situated about 200 km
tions for the US super-major’s local arm, told La from shore. They cover a combined area of about
Nation recently that ExxonMobil Mauritania 34,000 square km and are located in waters that
had decided to surrender its 90% stakes in the are 1,000-3,500 deep. ™
three blocks. He explained this move by noting
that the results of the exploration campaigns tar-
geting these sites had been uneven and difficult
to interpret. Since the licence areas are located
in ultra-deep waters, the company is reluctant
to proceed without clear data, he said.
Diagana further stated that ExxonMobil
Mauritania still had good relations with the
country’s government, Ministry of Petroleum
and the national oil company (NOC), Société
Mauritanienne Des Hydrocarbures et de Patri-
moine Minier (SMHPM). All parties are keen
to uphold Mauritania’s national interests and to
abide by the law, he declared.
As of press time, the US major had not com-
mented on the matter. Rumours of the compa-
ny’s plans began circulating several weeks ago,
following a series of meeting between repre-
sentatives of ExxonMobil and the Ministry of
Petroleum.
ExxonMobil Mauritania signed produc-
tion-sharing contracts (PSCs) for Blocks C-14,
C-17 and C-22 in 2017, taking a 90% equity stake
and assigning the remaining 10% to SMPHM. It
then opened an office in Nouakchott, the capital, Blocks C-14, C-17 and C-22 are in ultradeep waters (Image: Wood Mackenzie)

GOIL seeks partner for DW/CTP project

GHANA GHANA’S state-controlled oil marketing con- not to proceed with this project, GOIL aims to
cern has started looking for a new partner in find another partner that is willing to absorb the
the Deepwater Cape Three Points (DW/CTP) risk, he said at the company’s annual general
project. meeting (AGM).
Alex Adzew, the COO of Ghana Oil (GOIL), “With such activities, you do the seismic
said last week that his company hoped to team [survey] and interpret the data, but there’s a risk
up with another firm because it was committed that every company will put in such explora-
to moving forward with exploration work at tions. ExxonMobil felt that there was no need
DW/CTP. to drill further to find oil because the risk on this
Even though ExxonMobil (US) has decided particular [project] is high,” Adzew stated.

Week 26 30•June•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P13