Senegal’s First Big Oil and Gas Set for 2023 Driven by FSPO Construction

Senegal’s offshore oil and gas fields at Sangomar and Grand Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) are steaming ahead for new targets of 2023 production on the back of positive reports for their Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels nearing construction.

The Sangomar reserves, discovered in 2014, are some of the largest in the world with Australian E&P firm, Woodside Petroleum, having reached final investment decision in January 2020 and FPSO delivery and production planned for early 2023. Meanwhile, supermajor, bp has their FPSO’s final delivery date set for mid-June 2023. Both developments were priorly scheduled for 2022 but faced delays owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Sangomar Offshore and Sangomar Deep oil fields lie 100 km south of Dakar, Senegal’s capital, covering 7,490 km2. Here, Woodside, through contractor Diamond Offshore Drilling, Ocean BlackRhino FPSO completed a 23-well drilling campaign in September 2021- one of the largest globally at the time. This vessel is expected to be joined by a second from Diamond in the coming months- the Ocean BlackHawk – complementing the existing work of the Ocean BlackRhino. Drilling in this area takes place at a depth of 2,000 meters around the clock.

Also, in the spotlight for Woodside’s Sangomar project is the conversion of the 323-meter large crude carrier, Astipal, into a major FPSO for the field. Astipal arrived in China from its prior assignment in Indonesia in February 2021. The conversion is being overseen by Japanese firm MODEC and their mooring-solutions firm SOFEC, with the front-end engineering design contract signed in February 2019 followed by an FPSO purchase contract and a further operations and maintenance contract in December 2020. The conversion will take a full two years to complete.

Once complete, the FPSO, Léopold Sédar Senghor, will be permanently moored at a 780-meter depth offshore with an external turret system, designed to process 100,000 barrels of oil per day and 130 million cubic feet of gas per day, boasting a minimum of 1.3 million barrels’ worth in storage capacity. Although Sangomar is operated by Woodside, their stake in the venture is shared with national oil company, Petrosen, who hold 18%.

Meanwhile, to the north of the country, straddling the Senegal-Mauritania border is bp’s GTA development. The GTA FPSO is also under construction in China as supervised by France’s Technip Energies and China’s Cosco. Also headed for the field is a floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) vessel provided by contractor Golar LNG, currently completing conversions in Singapore. The Gimi FLNG vessel will support a capacity of 2.5 million tons per annum production and is scheduled to arrive onsite in the first quarter of 2023. Current plans are for the FPSO to export gas from the field via a 35 km pipeline to a near shore gas complex where the Gimi FLNG vessel will dock, sheltering behind a breakwater that was completed last month by France’s Eiffage. Discussions are also underway for a second FLNG vessel to be provided by Golar LNG.