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Woodside submits plan for Sangomar
SENEGAL
AUSTRALIA’S Woodside Energy and its part- ners are moving closer to making a nal 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 nal- 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.
ese documents are “the last major regu- latory submissions required before nal invest- ment decisions can be made by each joint venture participant,” Woodside explained. ey lay the groundwork for the partners to proceed to the FID stage, “subject to the grant of an exploitation authorisation and relevant joint venture approv- als,” it said.
In the development programme, Woodside said it would use a stand-alone oating produc- tion, storage and o -loading (FPSO) vessel for the rst stage of development work at Sango- mar. e joint venture will use the FPSO to drill 23 wells on the seabed and install supporting infrastructure, it stated. e partners intend to begin extracting oil in 2023 and will produce up to 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) during the rst phase, it said.
“ e 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 elds,” it added.
Gas production is expected to be used for power generation in the country, although much
will be exported in the form of LNG.
Peter Coleman, the CEO of Woodside, said
that the nalisation and submission of the devel- opment programme marked a key step towards the launch of development work at Sangomar. e documents demonstrate the joint venture partners’ commitment to upholding the condi- tions of their exploration licence, he added.
“ e submission of the exploitation plan and authorisation request is the culmination of front- end engineering design [FEED] activities. ese are the nal documents required by the govern- ment 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 opportu- nity, which will also be Senegal’s rst oil project,” Coleman said.
Mamadou Faye, the director general of Sene- gal’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 bene t of the people of Senegal and the joint venture, and we are excited about being in a position to take a nal invest- ment decision,” he commented.
Woodside is serving as the operator of San- gomar and owns a 35% stake in the project. e remaining equity is split 40% to Cairn Energy (Australia), 15% to FAR (Australia) and 10% to PetroSen. e partners discovered oil at the o shore block in 2014. e site is home to Ru s- que, Sangomar O shore and Sangomar Deep O shore elds, which contain around 645mn barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in recoverable reserves, including some 485mn barrels of crude and 160mn boe of natural gas.™
Leviathan set for production as Delek’s profits tumble
EGYPT
ISRAEL’S Delek Group this week has announced an 80% drop in Q3 net pro ts year on year, as the company prepares to kick o production from its key asset, the Leviathan gas eld.
e rm’s head, Asaf Bartfeld, also revealed that he would be retiring at the end of the year, with controlling stakeholder Yitzhak Tshuva’s long-time ally and the company’s current deputy CEO, Idan Wallace. Given Wallace’s relationship with Tshuva, the market should not anticipate a signi cant change of vision from Delek.
Delek Group owns 45% of the giant Leviathan
asset through its 60%-owned Delek Drilling subsidiary. It is partnered in the project by Hou- ston-based Noble Energy (39.7%) and local rm Ratio Oil Exploration (15%).
Noble wants to send some of Leviathan’s gas output to Egypt, where it will nd buyers among the country’s new generation of gas- red power plants. e US rm recently announced that the eld was on track to reach production in Decem- ber, below budget and ahead of schedule.
Noble said in its Q3 report that production decks had been installed on the jacket during
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 48 05•December•2019