Recent article on Senegal oil... all eyes on government approval.. Go FAR...
Last July, ConocoPhilips agreed to sell its shares for $ 350 million (more than 175 billion CFA francs), plus an adjustment of about $ 80 million (CFAF 40 billion). According to Jeune Afrique, "this transaction must still receive the approval of the authorities.
All you need to know about Senegal's oil
28 November 2016
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Senegal has not yet produced its first barrel of crude, but the smell of the oil curse dreaded already escape into the atmosphere. The enormous potential discovered by Cairn Energy carries important financial and political issues.
Emergence sooner than expected
Major producing countries
By the time, oil does not have the same flavor everywhere. For the big producing countries, it has a bizarre taste. Bitter. Altered since 2014 by the drop in crude oil prices attributable to excess supply. The prices of the barrel even oscillated around $ 25 during the first quarter of this year.
Last Friday, pushed, on the one hand, by the negative influence of a significant strengthening of the greenback and, on the other hand, by the geopolitical fears in Saudi Arabia, they gained 31 cents to 47.64 dollars. But according to specialists, "these contrasting news" are "insufficiently decisive to create a trend". So for a new outbreak of the courses, we will still have to wait.
Senegal observes the situation with distance, carelessness and a touch of assurance. The country is certainly part of the circle of producers of black gold, but does not worry too much about the difficult conjuncture that hits the sector.
He does not know. Seems to minimize it. Even allows himself, in an atmosphere of absolute gloom, to display his overflowing joy. He jumps, stamps on the horizon with impatience and appetite.
"It is a happy coincidence that less than a year after the presentation of the Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE), that we can discover oil in Senegal", ignited in October 2014 Maïmouna Ndoye Seck, current Minister of Tourism and , At the time, Minister of Energy and Development of renewable energies.
Later, when the first estimates of the Senegalese oil and gas potential came, President Macky Sall went on: "If Senegal begins to exploit these resources with sound and transparent management, the country can reach emergence in 2025 , Well before 2035, the PES deadline. "
The discovery of Senegalese oil is the place of all optimistic projections for the current regime and for many observers. It is synonymous with availability in quantity and quality of energy.
Lower prices for electricity and fuel. Balance of balance for the country's balance of payments with prospects of relief of the oil bill (10% of GDP) coupled with the possibilities of export of any surplus production.
Besides, already, even before the production of the first barrel, Senegal gains credibility in the international market thanks to the oil discovered in its subsoil.
100 thousand to 120 thousand barrels per day from 2021
Cairn Energy announces that it has detected a good quantity of oil 100 km from the Senegalese coast
The good news fell on 7 October 2014. Cairn Energy said it had detected a good amount of oil 100 km from the Senegalese coast.
At 1427 meters deep on the Sangomar Deep block (Deep Sangomar). Less than a year later, its President and CEO, Simon Thomson, confirms the generous estimates. A figure in support: "We believe we have discovered a world class pool with a potential estimated at more than one billion barrels of crude. "
Cairn Energy is a company based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It specializes in the production and distribution of energy. Alongside the US group ConocoPhilips (35%), FAR (15%) and Senegalese Petrosen (10%), it holds 40% of the licenses to operate three oil exploration blocks in Senegal: "Sangomar Deep "," Sangomar "and" Rufisque ".
His predictions for Senegalese oil are all the more enticing as they attract the Australian Woodside Petroleum. This company was active in oil exploration in Senegal in the early 2000s.
Last July, ConocoPhilips agreed to sell its shares for $ 350 million (more than 175 billion CFA francs), plus an adjustment of about $ 80 million (CFAF 40 billion). According to Jeune Afrique, "this transaction must still receive the approval of the authorities".
We'll have to do it quickly. Hurry up. Extraction of the first drop of oil "made in Senegal" is planned between 2021 and 2023. The expected production is from 100 thousand to 120 thousand barrels per day. With this in mind, Cairn Energy plans to dig 15 to 20 wells.
Faced with these beautiful prospects, the Senegalese authorities are overwhelmed with enthusiasm. They are not concerned about the gloomy forecasts, which timidly hope that the barrel will rise to 50 dollars by 2020.
They barely heed the rapprochement between oil and armed conflicts. They smile when one evokes the risk of seeing the country surrendered to rivalries between great powers around this raw material, certainly endangered, but still indispensable.
The Minister of Energy, Thierno Alassane Sall, does not sulk his pleasure. He is confident, reassuring: "There is no need to be afraid of the curse of natural resources.
We have to trust our own genius. (We have) a political system that has demonstrated its solidity and has been able to cope with all kinds of crises. "
Senegal already affected by the oil curse?
The famous "Senegalese genius". "The Senegalese exception", some will rectify. What Thierno Alassane Sall seems to ignore is that often the producer countries, especially in Africa, are not the main players in the conflicts related to the exploitation of their raw materials.
The danger often comes from the outside. And it is already beginning for Senegal with germs of conflicts that have their roots both at home and abroad.
Australian FAR challenged ConocoPhilips' decision to divest Woodside Petroleum, another Australian group, of the 35% it owns in the operation of the three oil exploration blocks of which Cairn Energy is The main shareholder.
The newspaper said that to avoid the outbreak of a conflict that would hamper Senegalese oil exploitation, Prime Minister Mahammad Dionne invited FAR and ConocoPhilips to give their violins as soon as possible.
On another front, no less volatile, the same Dionne had to intervene. In a correspondence with vitriol widely circulated in the press, one of its predecessors, Abdoul Mbaye, asks the Head of State to bring "the highest and most authorized voices of the State to answer to their And members of his party, questions of Senegalese citizens concerned about the opacity of the management of national wealth ".
In particular, "by publishing all the clauses, without exception, of the MOUs, decrees and oil and gas exploration and production contracts already signed or in the process of being signed, in order to comply with the rules of transparency In the governance of natural resources ".
Abdoul Mbaye, who became leader of the party (Act, opposition), addressed in the same correspondence a spade to the brother of the head of state, Aliou Sall.
It points to its "special relationship" with Petro-Tim Ltd, which is linked to the State of Senegal by a "hydrocarbon production research and sharing contract for the blocks of St. Louis offshore deep and deep offshore Cayar" .
"It is necessary to let the Senegalese know whether you were informed or not informed of this particularly embarrassing relationship as a new element in the process then under way and which should have seriously asked the question of its judgment", calls the former banker.
In his reply, Mahmoud Dionne initially referred Abdoul Mbaye to the provisions of the Constitution of March 20, enshrining transparency in the management of natural resources (Article 25-1, paragraph 4) and the right of political parties To appeal to national authorities (Article 3). A detour to undoubtedly mean to him that the present regime is a glass house.
Then Dionne confined himself to refreshing the memory to his interlocutor, recalling that "the daily functioning of the institutions does not allow each citizen, individually taken, or each political party, to question the untimely, sometimes fanciful, Government or the President of the Republic whose communications, messages and interventions obey a well-established Republican protocol ".
Finally, the current Head of Government suggested that one of his predecessors contact the "National Committee of the Itie" in order to have answers to questions of interest to him concerning the management of the natural resources of the island. Senegal.
"Until the extinction of the universe ..."
As if the reply of the Prime Minister was not enough, Aliou Sall has engaged. Personally quoted in the letter of the president of the Act, and previously on the same subject by Birahim Seck of the Civil Forum, the brother of the head of state claims his innocence.
He swears: "All these accusations are only fierce, not aimed at my little person, but that of President Macky Sall and his government. (...)
Until the extinction of the universe, nobody can show that Aliou Sall has a share in the oil or gas of Senegal.
The granting of the Saint Louis and Kayar permits was the work of Abdoulaye Wade and Karim Wade before President Macky Sall came to power. Everything else is a tissue of lies, the expression of dishonesty as well as the expression of fury. "
President Macky Sall. © photo seneweb.com.
President Macky Sall seems to have seen all this stir around the natural resources of Senegal. In his last report, he invited the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) to consider the modalities for the sustainable management of oil and gas discovered in Senegal. "Our country has already embarked on the process of joining the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)," he warned.
It is imperative to define in a proactive manner effective strategies capable of guaranteeing better governance of these future resources; Because it is not necessary to wait for the oil to be there to begin to reflect on how to set the benchmarks for a transparent exploitation and thus avoid the curse of oil as is unfortunately seen in some countries. "
In this sense, Ismaïla Madior Fall, President of the Islamic Republic of Yugoslavia, Minister-Counselor of the Head of State, is leading the way. He suggested adopting an oil code, an investment code and a tax code "attractive to investors but profitable and interesting for the national economy".
Accordingly, he stressed the need to train lawyers specializing in hydrocarbon law, mining law, oil law. "It will take good laws, good contracts so that if there are negotiations with large multinationals, the national side has the expertise to defend their country," he recommends.
Senegal has less than five years to put in place its prerequisites without which its oil risks becoming more a curse than a blessing.
Author: Ibrahima Fall - Seneweb.com
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