Page 4 - AfrOil Week 02 2020

AfrOil COMMENTARY AfrOil
Artist’s impression of the FPSO that RSSD will use to develop the Sangomar block (Image: Woodside Petroleum)
Senegal’s first oil project moving ahead
Woodside Petroleum and its partners in the Sangomar project have notified their contractors to proceed
WHAT:
The RSSD JV has received all necessary approvals from the government.
WHY:
Senegal is now on track to begin producing oil in 2023.
WHAT NEXT:
The partners are still waiting for the outcome of an arbitration case.
SENEGAL is not yet among the ranks of African oil and gas producers, but it has taken a big step in that direction over the last week.
On January 9, Australia’s Woodside Petro- leum said it had secured all of the necessary approvals from Senegal’s government to move forward with offshore development work at the Sangomar block. “Following the grant of the exploitation authorisation by the government of Senegal on January 8, 2020, the RSSD joint venture has received the relevant regulatory approvals to proceed, including the execution of the host government agreement with the government of Senegal,” the company reported.
Woodside is serving as the operator of the RSSD venture and owns a 35% stake. The remaining equity is split 40% to Cairn Energy (Australia), 15% to FAR Ltd (Australia) and 10% to state-owned PetroSen.
The partners discovered sizeable oil reserves
at Sangomar in 2014. They have determined that the block contains an estimated 645mn barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in recoverable reserves, including 485mn barrels of crude oil and 160mn boe of natural gas. It includes three separate fields – Rufisque, Sangomar Offshore and San- gomar Deep Offshore.
Woodside said in a statement that the San- gomar project had now advanced to the “exe- cute stage.” It explained that it had notified its contractors to proceed with work that had been contingent upon the taking of a final investment decision (FID). RSSD reached that milestone earlier this month.
An EPIC undertaking
The Sangomar project is anticipated to require investments of $4.2bn. Woodside and its part-
ners have not provided a full breakdown of their budget. 
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w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 02 15•January•2020