Page 4 - AfrElec Week 38

AfrElec COMMENTARY AfrElec
Senegal looking more attractive
after latest offshore discovery
BP and its partners say that the Yakaar-Teranga field contains more than 480 bcm of gas
SENEGAL
WHAT:
Like Greater TortueAhmeyim, Yakaar- Teranga appears to hold enough gas to justify the construction of an LNG plant
WHY:
The discovery has come to light just in time to draw investors to Senegal’s upcoming offshore bidding round
WHAT NEXT:
In the long term, Senegal hopes to use gas from the offshore zone to establish itself as an exporter and to promote economic development at home
BP (UK) and its partners Kosmos Energy (US) and Petrosen (Senegal, state-owned) have reported another natural gas discovery at the Yakaar-Terenga deepwater field, located offshore Senegal.
On September 23, Kosmos said it had encountered approximately 30 metres of net gas pay in the Cenomanian strata of the Yakaar-2 appraisal well. The find was large enough to bring the reserve estimate for the field up from about 400bn cubic metres to more than 480 bcm, according to a statement from the office of Sene- gal’s President Macky Sall.
The find is good news for the government’s efforts to make gas available for power genera- tion in the country.
Strong potential
The discovery served to confirm that the field’s reservoir extends southward of the Yakaar-1 well and also maintained the winning streak of companies exploring the inboard Mauritania/ Senegal trend, Kosmos said. So far, the company noted, wells targeting this trend have had a suc- cess rate of 100%.
President Sall went further, saying that Yakaar-Teranga appeared to be part of the big- gest deposit of gas in West Africa.
the development of the gas fields. But BP and its partners also plan to spend billions of dollars on the downstream end.
In late 2018, they made a final investment decision (FID) that provided for using some of the gas from Greater Tortue/Ahmeyim for domestic gasification projects in Mauritania and Senegal, leaving the rest to serve as feedstock for a gas liquefaction plant. The first phase of the plant is supposed to begin operating in the first half of 2022. It will turn out 2.5mn tonnes per year of LNG, and production capacity may even- tually reach 10mn tpy.
The field lies within a “wide structure on both
sides of the border between Senegal and Mauri-
tania,”hesaid. Theplanisdesignedtocatapultthecountry
with gas going to both domestic buyers and export
Yakaar-2 is not BP’s first discovery offshore Senegal; Yakaar-1 was the largest gas find in the world in 2017. BP has also found about 425 bcm of gas at Greater Tortue-Ahmeyim, a field that straddles the Senegalese-Mauritanian border.
And there may be even more: BP, Kosmos and Petrosen hold licences for two blocks within the inboard Mauritania/Senegal trend – Cayar Profond and St. Louis Profond, which cover an area of around 33,000 square km in the offshore zone. Both Yakaar-Teranga and Greater Tor- tue-Ahmeyim lie within this area, which may hold as much as 1.4-2.8tn cubic metres of gas, according to BP’s estimates.
Long-term benefits
These discoveries have the potential to spur sig- nificant economic growth in Senegal over the long term.
Some of this growth will stem from invest- ment in upstream operations – namely, funds for
into the middle-income group of countries by 2035.
Earlier this year, Sall told Guillaume Doane, the CEO of Africa Oil & Power (AOP), that his government intended to auction off a set of offshore blocks in October. During a meeting with Doane in July, he said that Petrosen would launch the bidding contest at AOP’s next annual conference, which will take place in Cape Town on October 9-11.
“With discovery after discovery, Senegal has distinguished itself as one of Africa’s leading exploration frontiers. Another licensing round is certain to draw interest from a wide variety of operators,” said Doane. ™
The group appears to be eyeing a similar plan for Yaakar-Teranga, with an eye towards launch- ing development around 2023. Kosmos said that the field was large enough to support two stages of development, with gas from the first phase going to domestic buyers in Senegal and gas from the second phase feeding another LNG plant that will target export markets.
Investment in these activities will benefit The field is
Senegal by expanding the gas sector, which will
be in a position to create jobs and lend support
to related industries such as construction. But
it will also bolster wider efforts to develop the
economy by making gas available for power gen-
eration, industrial use and residential consump-
tion, as envisioned in Plan Senegal Emergent development, (PSE), a government initiative unveiled in 2014.
Coming up next
In the near term, the BP-led group’s latest dis- markets covery – and its importance within the PSE
framework – is likely to spur greater interest in
Senegal’s next bidding round.
large enough to support two stages of
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 38 25•September•2019