Barry Morgan 18 Oct 2018 22:00 GMT Senegal President Macky Sall...

Barry Morgan
18 Oct 2018 22:00 GMT
Senegal President Macky Sall knows he cannot get a full draft of the long-awaited petroleum law presented to Parliament before the end of the year, but will instead start a series of roadshows next month designed to prefigure provisions devoted to local content and local participation, writes Barry Morgan.

Sall will stress the need for indigenous downstream players to step up to the plate, while also outlining his strategy for ensuring the benefits of Senegal’s impending bonanza are enjoyed by all — and while fending off opposition accusations that his regime is tarred by nepotism and graft.

Presidential elections loom in February with Senegal’s fractious alliances already exchanging brickbats with oil politics front and centre of an increasingly vicious campaign. Sall aims to woo the electorate with a message of prosperity for all.
Offshore investment figures contributed by oil players to the governments of both Senegal and Mauritania, and still held confidential, indicate $40 billion will be spent between 2019 and 2024 — coinciding with the end of Sall’s second term, if he wins — and another $60 billion before 2030.

All final investment decisions and upstream approvals have been pushed into 2019, allowing time for a new code to emerge and for Energy Minister Mansour Kane to ease out the smaller operators.
Revocation letters were issued and state-owned Petrosen requested licensees to re-apply.

Onshore players T5 Oil & Gas, Romania’s Tender Oil & Gas and Nigeria’s A-Z Petroleum complied but in so doing may have relinquished their rights under administrative law, whereas Elenilto and Oslo-listed African Petroleum Corporation (APC) declined to reapply.

APC opted instead to drag Senegal into arbitration over title to the Rufisque Deep, controversially re-allocated to Total, which subsequently inserted a compensation clause requiring the government to cough up in the event of any challenge.

Apparently ignoring ministerial overtures that an extension to its Casamance Deep licence might be granted if it backed off on Rufisque, APC doubled down on arbitration, triggering this month’s move by the ministry to tender expressions of interest from fresh suitors in both licences. A last ditch attempt to salvage Casamance is planned in November.

In July, Kane wrested all responsibility for new acreage from Petrosen, which has now been told to concentrate on development amid a scramble for equity by all the majors, with Italy’s Eni waiting to make its debut.

Having joined Total on the Rufisque Deep in August, Petronas of Malaysia now has its eyes on practically every block, while majors and mid-tiers already active in the country are lobbying for more.

https://www.upstreamonline.com/hard...-a-scramble-as-tasty-looking-acreage-on-offer