Page 6 - AfrOil Week 44 2019

AfrOil INVESTMENT AfrOil
 “African Petroleum Senegal, a subsidiary of
PetroNor, remains in arbitration proceedings
with the government of Senegal and continues
to reserve its rights to a 90% working interest
in SOSP,” it said. “As such, this update has no
impact on the arbitration process, and the
board of PetroNor remains steadfast in its legal
position and looks forward to having the matter
resolved through either the independent chan-
nels of arbitration or via a satisfactory settlement
agreementintheinterestofallparties.” Asofpresstime,neithertheSenegalesegov-
SOSP’s status has been under debate since late 2017. At that time, African Petroleum, a company that PetroNor acquired in August of this year, was seeking to enter into the second renewal phase of its production-sharing con- tracts (PSCs) for two blocks – SOSP and Rufis- que Offshore Profond (ROP). It was also trying to convince PetroSen, the national oil company (NOC) of Senegal, to allow it to collect 3D seis- mic data rather than drilling new wells.
These attempts to strike a deal were unsuc- cessful, so African Petroleum never signed
ernment nor PetroSen had responded publicly to PetroNor’s statement.
Senegal has recently reported several major gas discoveries in the offshore zone, near the border with Mauritania. BP (UK) and Kosmos Energy (US) have found sizeable reserves at Grand Tortue-Ahmeyim and Yaakar-Teranga and hope to use these fields to support two LNG projects. Meanwhile, Woodside Energy (Australia), Cairn Energy (UK) and FAR Ltd (Australia) are planning to extract both crude oil and natural gas from the SNE licence area™
POLICY
Nigeria urged to expand use of gas
Senegal’s offshore zone (Image: FAR Energy)
documents on the second renewal phase of the project. It then made a formal complaint regarding the two blocks, saying that Senega- lese authorities had not taken the steps neces- sary to validate the termination of the PSCs, and requested arbitration.
Since then, the arbitration process has not moved forward quickly. This is largely because the parties have not secured a mutually accept- able arbitrator.
NIGERIA
THE Nigerian government’s oil and gas regu- latory agency has released a report urging the country to make better use of its natural gas reserves.
In the report, the Department of Petro- leum Resources noted that Nigeria’s proven gas reserves stood at 200.79tn cubic feet (5.686tn cubic metres) as of January 1, 2019. This repre- sents an increase of nearly 2% on the figure of 197 tcf (5.579 tcm) posted on January 1, 2017, it said, adding that reserve estimates might even- tually go as high as 600 tcf (16.992 tcm) as more deposits were found.
At the same time, the department said,
Nigeria is not realising its full potential, as it is only extracting about 8.06bn cubic feet (228.25mn cubic metres per day) of gas. Cur- rently, it stated, producers send only 17% of these volumes to the domestic market, where they can be used to produce electricity at ther- mal power plants (TPPs)
The remaining 83% is reserved for other purposes, with 41% of total production going
to the export market via companies such as Nigeria LNG and West African Gas Pipeline
Co. (WAGPCo), 31% allocated for re-injection
into offshore oil reservoirs and 11% flared off as
waste gas. 
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 44 06•November•2019