Senegal enters the LNG race with significant offshore discoveries
Published by Will Owen,
Editor
LNG Industry,
At present, when it comes to emerging LNG players the eyes of the world are on Africa’s eastern coast and the activities around Mozambique, but that could be about to change. While not currently amongst the continent’s top oil and gas producers, Senegal plans to alter that in the coming years. On the back of some substantial deepwater finds the West African nation is predicted to become a hot spot during the next decade for relatively low-cost LNG clusters.
Senegal, where oil was discovered in 1961, expects all its offshore projects to come online between 2022 and 2026. According to the International Monetary Fund, between 2014 and 2017, oil and gas reserves worth more than 1 billion barrels of oil and 40 trillion ft3 of gas, most of it shared with Mauritania, were found. Two large fields in Senegal are currently being developed – Australia’s Woodside Energy is developing the SNE field and BP/Kosmos Energy the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim LNG project.
Full speed ahead for Tortue
BP took the final investment decision (FID) on the Mauritania-Senegal floating LNG (FLNG) plan late last year. The Greater Tortue Ahmeyim LNG project will produce around 2.5 million tpy, with first gas expected in 2022. There are expansion plans for a hub on Yakaar-Teranga and one on Birallah. The Orca well, which is expected to be spudded in October, would go to supporting the Birallah hub and the first phase will provide domestic gas and data for the producers. Senegal launched a development plan in 2014, with Kosmos saying gas from the offshore fields would go to supporting this.
In September Kosmos Energy and its partners BP and confirmed that the Yakaar-2 appraisal well has encountered approximately 30 m of net gas in a similar high-quality Cenomanian reservoir to the Yakaar-1 exploration well, continuing the 100% success rate of wells targeting the inboard Mauritania/Senegal gas trend.
According to Kosmos the results from the well prove that the Yakaar-Teranga resource base is world-scale and has the potential to support an LNG project that provides significant volumes of natural gas to both domestic and export markets. Development of Yakaar-Teranga is expected in a phased approach with Phase 1 providing domestic gas and data to optimise the development of future phases. It will also support the country’s ‘Plan Emergent Senegal’ launched by the President of Senegal in 2014. Kosmos has said it intends to sell down its stake in the project. It is seeking a carry for its development costs, in order to focus on its expertise in exploration.
Read the article online at: https://www.lngindustry.com/liquid-natural-gas/29102019/senegal-enters-the-lng-race-with-significant-offshore-discoveries/
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