info.afrindex.com
China-Africa Trade Information Service
info.afrindex.com
China-Africa Trade Information Service
African oil hotpots is becoming increasingly attractive to global investors and exploration companies. While trends are generally on the up in terms of interest in the continent’s established and emerging oil and gas regions, what are the factors driving the flow of investment? Three national case studies – Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Mozambique – offer an insight into the pitfalls and possibilities for overseas investors looking for opportunities in Africa's burgeoning oil and gas sector.
For years, Africa's abundant natural resources have been playing a central part in the economic development of many of its constituent nations. Increased exploration activity by the global oil and gas sector has generated a raft of major hydrocarbon discoveries both offshore and onshore. Since the International Energy Agency's figures confirm that almost a third of all oil and gas discoveries in the last five years were made in sub-Saharan Africa, this is a trend that looks set to continue for the foreseeable future.
BP company is the operator of three blocks offshore Senegal: Sangomar Deep, Sangomar Offshore, Rufisque Offshore, with a 40% stake in each, alongside partners Far Ltd (15%) and Petrosen, which is the state oil company of Senegal 10%. Australia’s Woodside Petroleum bought a 35% stake in the consortium from ConocoPhillips last year.
Probable oil reserves are already put at 473m and first oil is expected sometime in 2021-23. It is likely that a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel will be deployed on the deepwater field.
BP farms
At the end of February, BP completed the purchase of equity in Kosmos Energy’s Tortue project, which covers 33,000 square km of maritime territory offshore both Senegal and neighbouring Mauritania. It has acquired a 32.49% stake in Kosmos’ Senegalese blocks and 62% of those in Mauritania. First gas is expected in 2021.
BP also becomes operator of the project, although Kosmos will remain the technical operator while three more exploration wells are drilled, probably this year. The US firm will still hold a slightly larger – although much reduced – stake in the Senegal blocks, at 32.51%.
“With the transaction now complete, Kosmos looks forward to working with the government of Senegal and partners to move ahead with the next stage of our work program involving further exploration in the two blocks and seeking to produce first gas from the Tortue project by 2021.”said Kosmos CEO and chairman Andrew Inglis.
There are currently only three LNG exporters in Sub-Saharan Africa: Nigeria, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, although Mozambique and Tanzania are likely to join them in the next few years. Even a small plant would require billions of dollars in investment, representing the biggest single investment ever made in either Senegal or Mauritania.
The government of Senegal hopes that some of the gas can also be used in domestic power generation, as the lack of reliable power supplies is one of the biggest drags on economic development. In addition, oil and gas investment should help the country to build on its recent more rapid economic growth. GDP increased by 6.5% in 2016, the fastest rate for eleven years, and the IMF forecasts annual growth of 7% for this year and next.
