Uganda’s Lake Albert basin wide development is the largest E&P project currently under construction in Africa. But onshore developments like this (it is expected to peak at 230,000Barrels of oil per day (BOPD)) are becoming outliers. The rule is that the large discoveries take place in deepwater.
After just one dry hole, the media have muted their once animated discussions about anticipated outcome of ReconAfrica’s exploration in the vast onshore Kavango basin in Namibia. And there was never major headline news tracking Invictus Energy’s wildcat drilling in landlocked Cahora Bass Basin in Zimbabwe.
On the contrary, discoveries in Namibian deep offshore and developments in South African deepwater, have remained on the front-page news.
And it seems to get better the more the water depth. TOTALEnergies is vigorously reconsidering a return to its 13Million Tonnes Per Day Liquefied Natural Gas project in Mozambique which, though located on land, is extracting and processing massive volumes of natural gas lying beneath 2,000 metres of water in the Indian Ocean.
Senegal should become an oil producer by the last quarter of 2023, when Woodside Energy and its partners complete the first phase of valourising the Sangmar field in water depths from 700 metres to 1,400metres. The target is 100,000BOPD. Around the corner, straddling Mauritania and Senegal, the 2.5Million Metric Tonne Per Day Floating LNG project on the Grand Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) field is located in 2,850metre water depth, representing Africa’s deepest offshore project to date.
This is the 16th edition of Africa Oil+Gas Report’s Deepwater Annual, in which we explore, as much as possible, the up-to-date market intelligence about the activities in the deep blue. Welcome to 2023.
This journal is the primer of the hydrocarbon industry on the continent. It is the market leader in local contextualizing of global developments and policy issues and is the go-to medium for decision makers, whether they be international corporations or local entrepreneurs, technical enterprises or financing institutions. Published by the Festac News Press Limited since November 2001, AOGR is a paid subscription based monthly, e-copy publication delivered around the world. Its website remains www.africaoilgasreport.com info@africaoilgasreport.com and the contact email address is . Contact telephone numbers in our West African regional headquarters in Lagos are +2348130733523, +2347062420127, +234803652979, +2348023902519.
– Editor
