Page 10 - AfrOil Week 48 2019

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SENEGAL
AUSTRALIA’S Woodside Energy and its part- ners are moving closer to making a final invest- ment decision (FID) on the development of Sangomar, an oil- and gas-bearing block for- merly known as SNE that is located offshore Senegal.
In a statement, the company said it had final- ised the Sangomar Development and Exploita- tion Plan. It also reported that it had submitted the plan, along with an exploitation authorisa- tion request, to the government of Senegal on December 2.
These documents are “the last major reg- ulatory submissions required before final investment decisions can be made by each joint venture participant,” Woodside explained. They lay the groundwork for the partners to proceed to the FID stage, “subject to the grant of an exploitation authorisation and relevant joint venture approvals,” it said.
In the development programme, Woodside said it would use a stand-alone floating produc- tion, storage and off-loading (FPSO) vessel for the first stage of development work at Sango- mar. The joint venture will use the FPSO to drill 23 wells on the seabed and install supporting infrastructure, it stated. The partners intend to begin extracting oil in 2023 and will produce up to 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) during the first phase, it said.
“The FPSO will be designed to allow for the integration of subsequent Sangomar develop- ment phases, including gas export to shore and future subsea tie-backs from other reservoirs and fields,” it added.
Peter Coleman, the CEO of Woodside, said that the finalisation and submission of the development programme marked a key step towards the launch of development work at Sangomar. The documents demonstrate the joint venture partners’ commitment to uphold- ing the conditions of their exploration licence, he added.
“The submission of the exploitation plan and authorisation request is the culmination of front-end engineering design [FEED] activ- ities. These are the final documents required
by the government ahead of granting approval to proceed. We look forward to continuing to work with the joint venture, the government, our contractors and other stakeholders to develop this opportunity, which will also be Senegal’s first oil project,” Coleman said.
Mamadou Faye, the director general of Sen- egal’s national oil company (NOC) Petrosen, also expressed satisfaction with Woodside’s progress. “The exploitation plan outlines how the field will be developed to the benefit of the people of Senegal and the joint venture, and we are excited about being in a position to take a final investment decision,” he commented.
Woodside is serving as the operator of San- gomar and owns a 35% stake in the project. The remaining equity is split 40% to Cairn Energy (Australia), 15% to FAR (Australia) and 10% to PetroSen.
The partners discovered oil at the offshore block in 2014. The site is home to Rufisque, San- gomar Offshore and Sangomar Deep Offshore fields, which contain around 645mn barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in recoverable reserves, including some 485mn barrels of crude and 160mn boe of natural gas. ™
Sangomar was formerly known as SNE (Image: FAR Ltd)
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However, popular patience with such excuses is wearing thin after more than two years under the current administration.
The company’s financial condition is con- tributing to and compounding TOR’s oper- ational deficiencies. The state firm remains heavily indebted and in June 2018 was forced to shut down owing to its inability to finance crude imports.
The refinery’s management was subse- quently strongly criticised in December by the local Institute for Energy Security for the deal due to have returned the plant to profitable
functioning. TOR allegedly lost US$24 million through a flawed sales and purchase agreement (SPA) with the UK’s BP, receiving a shipment of 950,000 barrels of Bonny Light crude in Octo- ber without having concluded offtake agree- ments for the refined product.
The inability of Tema to process local crude is another long-standing bugbear of critics. The idea of investing in a major upgrade and expan- sion of the existing plant, initially to 60,000 bpd, has periodically resurfaced. Accra’s preference, though, increasingly appears to be to start over in the west.. ™
Woodside submits plan for Sangomar
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 48 04•December•2019