Total to buy out current Senegal explorers?

Hi All

The following badly translated but intriguing article was posted today on FB and is reposted here with permission:

"To that end, France has agreed to grant Senegal, in this context, loans at very low rates, which the two leaders have not failed to congratulate themselves.
But the real question, and that everyone was waiting, was to see the arrival of the French oil giant, Total, in the oil fields of Senegal. Since the time when everyone speculated on it, even sometimes openly wondering, if the persistence of some against oil exploration contracts by the Anglo-Saxon companies currently in the theater of operations, did not hide intentions more or less Less unavowed of companies and French governors to bout those "intruders" out of their African square meadow, doubt was dissipated yesterday. Energy Minister Thierno Alassane Sall has finalized the "Deep Offshore Cooperation Protocol" with his compatriot Momar Nguer, Managing Director of Total, in charge of Marketing and Services.
In a non-cryptic way, Total could take an interest in seeing, as Ambassador Christophe Bigot had said in Le Quotidien, whether it was in his interest to create space in the marine territory of Senegal, In order to make exploration, or if, on the contrary, it had to take shares of a well-established operator, among the many actors who are on the scene. Be that as it may, the agreement of yesterday shows that the French did not bear for a long time of being misled on the oil capacities of Senegal. But for the Senegalese leaders, to hear the head of state, it changes absolutely nothing. "If Total, the 4th or 5th world oil company, wants to explore the Senegal basin, in the deep offshore, this is something very positive. The framework for this intervention remains to be defined. But all this is stated in the Petroleum Code, for a very long time. An agreement could be signed in the future, and Total could be required to undertake a number of projects in accordance with its commitment. "
To finish Macky Sall will conclude that Senegal could do better if the Majors return to the country. "If tomorrow we have Total as we had Bp, that's a plus for Senegal. But there is no contradiction between what we are going to do up to now and what we have done up to now "

Allowing for the Pidgin English, the Ambassador seems to believe that in order to gain a foothold, Total will need to buy equity from current operators. Hmmmmm.

OOO