Alert: The State risks giving Petrosen shares in Rop to African Petroleum to save those of Total
Seeking to avoid a long and costly judicial battle at all costs, Dakar made proposals to the junior. The closing date of the conciliation period was due to fall on 18 April (AEI 813). However, both sides, namely the State of Senegal and African Petroleum Corp (APC) have agreed to continue negotiations on the deep offshore block Rufisque, withdrawn in early 2017 to the oil junior. APC is advised in this case by the Parisian firm Betto Seraglini, who did not wish to answer our questions.
Quite quickly after taking over this particularly well-located block - it adjoins that of Sangomar Deep Offshore on which Cairn Energy has uncovered more than 500 million barrels - President Macky Sall has weighed all his weight to give it to Total . This led to a mini-political crisis and the dismissal of the mines and energy minister at the time Thierno Alassane Sall, opposed to the case of the French tanker (AEI nº792). Today, however, this dispute with APC considerably penalizes the major who thought that the procedure leading to the resumption of this license was unquestionable from the legal point of view.
Senegalese justice minister Ismaïla Madior Fall wants to avoid spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal proceedings for an arbitration whose outcome is far from certain. To this end, the Senegalese government would now propose to make the deep offshore offshore Senegal (SOSP) license to APC, hoping that this proposal will be likely to halt the legal process on deep offshore Rufisque. SOSP, located off the Casamance region, was also removed to the junior. However, APC seeks to make full use of the situation of discomfort in which the Senegalese government is located and is pushing for a stake in deep offshore Rufisque. As it will be difficult to reduce the share of Total (90%), only that of the Senegalese state company Petrosen (10%), currently supported by Total, could eventually be minted to bend APC.
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The above is translation from Blog de Cheikh Yerim Seck
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Clearly, Senegalese government have concerns regarding intra-JV squabbling and is trying for "amicable" resolution.
Have a great weekend,
MS
(20min delay)