Page 11 - AfrOil Week 09 2022

AfrOil POLICY AfrOil

Kenya has continued to lay claim to a larger section of the offshore zone (Image: ICJ)
It has the right to appeal against the decision for Little is known about Coastline Exploration.
a period of 10 years, so the matter may remain The company described itself in a February 19
under litigation unless the parties manage to press release as focused on the East African
hammer out a settlement. region and said it had entered into negotiations
The cancellation of Coastal Exploration’s with the Somali Petroleum Authority (SPA)
PSAs had nothing to do with the territorial dis- within the framework of the country’s current
pute. Rather, it appears to have been rooted in licensing round.
Somalia’s internal political scene. According to other sources, Coastline Explo-
When Mohamed nixed the deals in a state- ration was founded in 2018, and its CEO W.
ment on Twitter on February 19, he explained Richard Anderson is a former member of the
that the projects would not go forward because board of directors of Eurasia Drilling Co. (EDC),
they had the potential to influence the upcom- which was set up on the basis of onshore drilling
ing presidential election, which was then due to assets formerly owned by Russia’s Lukoil. EDC’s
be held on February 25. (It has since been post- current CEO Alexander Djaparidze also serves
poned again to March 15.) on Coastline’s board. ™

Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea sign

MoU on joint processing of gas

NIGERIA/EQ. GUINEA THE governments of Nigeria and Equatorial to existing transport infrastructure – to be deliv-
Guinea have signed a memorandum of under- ered to Punta Europa’s gas-processing and LNG
standing (MoU) that provides for natural and plants on Bioko Island.
associated gas from stranded fields in the for- The officials indicated that the Nigerian gas
mer country’s offshore zone to be processed at would be transported to the gas hub by subsea
the Punta Europa gas hub in the latter country. pipeline. However, they did not say how much
According to press reports, high-ranking gas might be involved in such an arrangement or
officials from the two sides signed the docu- say which fields might be served by the pipeline.
ment on March 1 during the Nigeria Inter- Nor did they speculate as to when the parties
national Energy Summit (NIES), an ongoing might sign a binding agreement on the matter.
event in Abuja. They also stated that the MoU Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum
would provide for gas from Nigeria’s stranded Resources Timipre Sylva, who signed the MoU
fields – that is, isolated deepwater sites in the on Abuja’s behalf, said the document would help
Gulf of Guinea that cannot be connected easily monetise stranded gas assets within two years.

Week 09 02•March•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P11