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He added: “We thank the relevant authorities in Senegal for their pragmatism in reaching this mutual decision and hope to use this window of suspension to progress our dialogue and reach a firm agreement that benefits both PetroNor and Senegal.”
The dispute over the two blocks dates back to late 2017. At that time, the production-sharing contracts (PSCs) for SOSP and ROP expired, and African Petroleum Corp. (APC), now a subsidiary of PetroNor, applied for permission to participate in the second, renewal phase of work at the blocks. It also asked PetroSen, the national oil company (NOC) of Senegal, to let it commit to collecting 3D seismic data rather than drilling new wells.
After its applications were rejected, the com- pany filed a formal notice of dispute with the government in January 2018. In the notice, it alleged that Senegalese authorities had not taken the steps necessary to validate the termination of the contracts.
The parties were unable to resolve the dispute within a period of three months, though, and APC sought arbitration from ICSID in August 2018.
The dispute flared up again in November 2019, when Dakar included SOSP in a licens- ing round that included all of the country’s open offshore blocks. At that time, PetroNor declared that its subsidiary had not relinquished its claims to that block or to ROP.
GHANA
GHANA’S government has instructed Italy’s Eni and Springfield E&P, a local company, to team up to develop two adjacent offshore licence areas.
In a recent letter viewed by Reuters, Ghana’s Energy Minister John-Peter Amewu ordered the merger of Sankofa, a site where Eni began extracting crude oil in 2017, with Afina, where Springfield discovered both oil and gas earlier this year.
Accra has taken this decision on the basis of seismic data showing that Sankofa and Afina are part of the same field, he wrote. The two sites have “identical reservoir and fluid properties,” he stated.
Amewu noted in the letter, which was dated April 9, that Eni had previously indi- cated that it was not ready to discuss a tie-up
before Springfield had completed the process of appraising and testing the Afina discovery. He said, though, that Ghanaian authorities did not agree with this position and saw unitisation as the best option for ensuring efficient develop- ment of the resources in question.
As such, he said, Accra is giving Springfield and Eni 30 days to launch the process of joining forces. It also gave the companies 120 days to present a draft agreement to the Energy Min- istry and noted that the ministry had the pre- rogative to set the terms and conditions of a unitisation deal if they did not do so.
As of press time, it was not clear whether the two companies had met the first deadline. When contacted by Reuters, they both acknowl- edged receipt of Amewu’s letter but declined to comment on the matter.
PetroNor claims the right to a 90% working interest in ROP and SOSP (Image: PetroNor/APC)
Ghana tells Eni, Springfield E&P
to unitise Sankofa and Afina fields
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