Page 7 - AfrOil Week 47 2019

AfrOil POLICY AfrOil
Senegal discusses gas-to-power plans
SENEGAL
SENEGAL’S Petroleum and Energy Minister Mahamadou Makhtar Cisse said last week that his country was keen to use its offshore reserves of natural gas as fuel for electricity generation.
Speaking at an energy industry conference in Paris, Cisse said that production from Senegal’s own gas fields would “principally be used for gas-to-power [projects].” The country will build a gas pipeline network covering about 450km to facilitate transportation from offshore fields to domestic consumers, he said.
He also acknowledged that his country was not in a position to pursue gas-to-power schemes right away. Senegal will begin by using imported LNG as fuel for thermal power plants (TPPs) and then switch to domestic gas pro- duction around 2022, when new fields are due to come online, he said.
These new fields are known as SNE and Grand Tortue-Ahmeyim. The first is a block where Australia’s Woodside Petroleum is serv- ing as operator, and the second will see BP leading development. Senegal is in talks with partners on how to raise $2bn to cover its share of investment in these two sites. It has also opened up bidding for 12 new offshore blocks.
Cisse did not specify how much LNG or pipeline gas Senegal might consume in the future. He did note, though, that gas would replace coal and petroleum products as fuel for the West African state’s TPPs.
Switching to gas will benefit the Senegalese economy in the long run, he added. Domestic gas supplies will be cheaper than imported coal or refined fuel, so they will help bring produc- tion costs down, he explained. In turn, he said, lower production costs will make the country more attractive to investors, especially those pursuing industrial projects.
Affordable domestic gas will also encourage
the construction of new TPPs, he asserted. Sen- egal currently has about 1,200 MW of installed capacity and hopes to add another 1,000 MW within the next five years, he said. All of the new capacity will come from private sector projects, he noted.
Currently, coal and petroleum prod- uct-burning TPPs account for around 70% of Senegal’s power-generating capacity. The remaining 30% is split between solar, with 22%, and hydropower, with 8%. ™
Total touts its commitment to Nigeria’s master plan for natural gas
Senegal’s offshore zone (Image: FAR Ltd)
LIBYA
TOTAL is committed to abiding by the Nige- rian government’s plan for optimising the use of domestic natural gas resources, a representative of the French major’s Nigerian affiliate has said.
Mike Sangster, the managing director of Total E&P Nigeria, said at an industry conference on November 26 that his company had pledged to honour the Nigerian Gas Master Plan. “Total is committed to the Nigerian Gas Master Plan [for] reducing flaring and monetising gas,” he said in
his sponsor’s address. “We are also committed to the supply of additional gas to NLNG [Nigeria LNG] Train 7 for [the] increase of NLNG capac- ity. We have signed three gas supply aggregation agreements (GSAAs), and we take our domestic gas supply obligations under these agreements quite seriously.”
He pointed out, though, that efforts to implement the Nigerian Gas Master Plan faced obstacles.
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