23-Well Offshore Senegal Plan Nears Final Decision  | Rigzone

The initial Sangomar Field Development phase could achieve first oil in early 2023.

Woodside Energy reported Tuesday that the development and exploitation plan for the Sangomar field offshore Senegal has been submitted to the West African country’s government.

According to Woodside CEO Peter Coleman, whose company operates the Sangomar Field Development joint venture (JV) and holds a 35-percent interest in the endeavor, submitting the documents to Senegal’s government represents a major milestone.

“The submission of the exploitation plan and authorization request is the culmination of front-end engineering design activities,” Coleman said in a written statement. “These are the final documents required by the government ahead of granting approval to proceed.”

Woodside also stated the JV participants expect to make their respective final investment decisions on Sangomar – formerly named SNE – later this month, subject to the grant of an exploitation authorization from the government and relevant JV approvals. Other Sangomar Field Development JV members include Cairn Energy subsidiary Capricorn Senegal Limited (40 percent interest), FAR Ltd. (15 percent) and the Senegal national oil company Petrosen (10 percent).

“We look forward to continuing to work with the joint venture, the government, our contractors and other stakeholders to develop this opportunity, which will also be Senegal’s first oil project,” noted Coleman.

Under Phase 1 of the Sangomar Field Development, the JV would deploy a stand-alone floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility linked to 23 subsea wells and supporting subsea infrastructure. Woodside stated that Phase 1 of the development will target an estimated 230 million barrels of oil, adding the FPSO will likely be able to produce approximately 100,000 barrels per day.

The FPSO, slated to achieve first oil in early 2023, will be designed to integrate subsequent Sangomar development phases, Woodside added. The operating company noted that such longer-range plans could include gas export to short and future subsea tie-backs from other reservoirs and fields.

“The exploration plan outlines how the field will be developed to the benefit of the people of Senegal and the joint venture, and we are excited about being in a position to take a final investment decision,” commented Mamadou Faye, Petrosen’s director general.

Subsea Integration Alliance and MODEC International have completed the front-end engineering design activities for the subsea contract and FPSO facility, respectively, Cairn states on its website. Moreover, the company noted the Sangomar JV acquired a high-resolution 3D seismic survey during the second and third quarters of this year to improve reservoir definition and support development well placement.

Cairn also pointed out Sangomar, which it drilled as SNE in 2014, was the largest global oil discovery that year. Woodside reported last month that Senegal President Macky Sall changed the name of SNE to Sangomar to “better reflect” the field’s association with the people of his country.

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