S
enegal is the latest coun-
try to join Africa’s league
of oil prospectors. Since
2014, international companies
have made scores of oil and gas
discoveries in Teranga, where
up until now phosphate was the
best-knownnaturalresource.The
companies behind these discov-
eries are small explorers from
the UK and the US. Among them
are Texas-based Kosmos Energy,
which discovered a large natural
gasdepositunderthedeepwaters
offshore Mauritania and Senegal,
andUK-listedCairnEnergy,which
operatesthreeoffshoreexploration
blocks–SangomarDeep,Rufisque
OffshoreandSangomarOffshore.
The arrival of oil majors over
the past few months is a sign of
the country’s vast oil potential.
In early May, French giant Total
settled on the Rufisque Offshore
Profond block and British com-
pany BP teamed up with Kosmos
in December 2016 to develop
the Greater Tortue Complex. In
March, Chinese state-ownedOIL AND GASBlackbonanza
Senegal is buzzing with excitement around recent oil
and gas discoveries. Now comes the challenge of building
an oil and gas industry that will benefit allKosmos Energy’s
drillship theAtwood
Achieveroff the
coast of Senegalcompany CNOOC also secured a
permitfortheAGCProfondblock,
located in the offshore joint de-
velopmentzonebetweenSenegal
and Guinea-Bissau.
The country’s estimated oil
reserves have been revised up-
wardsto473mbarrelsofcrudeoil.
Most of the hydrocarbon reserves
that have been discovered in the
regionaredeepwatergasreserves.
The Greater Tortue deposit is the
largestliquefiednaturalgas(LNG)
reserve in West Africa, with anestimated 700bn cubic metres of
LNG.Thefirstbarrelsareexpected
in 2021, with an average produc-
tion rate of 100,000 to 120,000
barrels per day (bpd).
KosmosandBPhavepartnered
to build the first floating LNG fac-
ility in the Senegal-Mauritania
basin, 8km off Saint-Louis, which
could begin operations in 2022.
Thefacilityisprojectedtoproduce
227bncubicmetresofLNGover30
years.Accordingtothecompany’s
estimates,itwillrepresenta$30bn
contribution to both countries’
gross domestic product.
AlthoughSenegalhasseensome
majordiscoveries,thecountrystill
ranks far below the continent’s
leading oil producers. In 2015,
Nigeria produced 2.4m bpd – 24
times the production from the
Cairn-operated blocks – and, at
5.1bn cubic metres, its estimated
gas reserves are more than seven
times the volume discovered by
Kosmos at Greater Tortue, not all
of which is on Senegal’s territory.
According to experts, in about
10 years’ time Senegal’s oil and
gas sector could resemble that
of Chad’s or Ghana’s – they pro-
duced 78,000 and 145,000 bpd in
2015 respectively – but catching
up with the giants, or even expe-
rienced players, any time soon
would be a pipe dream.
First, the technology for gas
liquefaction is more challenging
than that of crude oil extraction.RICCI SHRYOCKNigeriaAngolaAlgeriaLibyaGabon1,6801,6131,059730204Top crude-oil-producing countries in Africa
in May 2017, tb/d** tb/d = thousand
SOURCE:OPEC,BASEDONSECONDARYSOURCES barrels per day66