Country: Mauritania

Mauritania has signed an exploration and gas production contract with energy firms Go gas and Taqa Arabia to tap into the discovered Banda and Tevet fields, which boast an estimated 2.2 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas reserves. The deal represents an investment of some $1bn and is a key part of the West African nation’s plan to improve its energy infrastructure and boost electricity production. The contract, a cornerstone of Mauritania’s energy strategy, aims at supplying domestic gas to fuel the 180-megawatt Nouakchott dual power plant located north of the capital. The development is expected to stabilize the electricity supply, proving crucial for the country’s key industrial and mining sectors. “The signing of this agreement represents an important step in the framework of the new dynamic of valorization of Mauritania’s national gas resources,” Minister of Petroleum, Mines and Energy Nani Ould Chrougha said in an official statement, emphasizing the deal’s alignment with efforts to stimulate investments in the upstream segment of the oil and gas industry. Last week on Wednesday, the Mauritanian government gave approval to the gas exploration and production contract with the Taqa-Go consortium following a competitive bidding process. The consortium’s commitment includes the development of a new 120-megawatt gas-fired power plant and the enhancement of the existing 180-megawatt facility, reflecting Mauritania’s shift towards more efficient energy production. The exploitation of the Banda and Tevet fields is crucial to Mauritania’s goal of achieving universal electricity access by 2030. Banda was discovered in 2002 by Woodside Energy and was quickly earmarked as a domestic gas project, whose economics have been deemed too unattractive by most of its operators ever since. The project also aims to foster a synergistic relationship between the gas and power sectors, offering competitively priced, reliable electricity to support the nation’s industrial backbone. Both state utility SOMELEC and state-mining company SNIM are expected to benefit from more reliable gas-to-power supply. This agreement marks a significant step in Mauritania’s journey towards energy self-sufficiency as it pushes to leverage its natural resources for economic growth and energy autonomy.

Mali, Guinea, Mauritania and Senegal celebrated over the weekend the inauguration of the 140 MW Gouina hydropower plant, whose units were commissioned earlier this year. The facility was built as part of a multi-project plan involving the construction of several hydroelectric stations along the Senegal River, where the hydroelectric potential is estimated at 1,200 MW. The project is owned and managed by the Organization for the Development of the Senegal River (OMVS), which received a loan of $ 110 million from the International Development Association of the World Bank several years ago for this integrated management programme for the region’s water resources. The Gouina plant is the third hydropower project of this type to be commissioned by the OMVS after the 205 MW Manantali plant in 2002 and the 60 MW Félou plant in 2013.

bp and Kosmos Energy have signed a new Exploration & Production Sharing Contract over the BirAllah gas discovery offshore Mauritania on October 11th. A new agreement was required after the exploration period over Block C8 expired last June. The BirAllah gas field was discovered 60km north of the Greater Tortue-Ahmeyim (GTA) gas field that straddles the Mauritanian-Senegalese maritime border. Negotiations over future activity on the acreage have been ongoing for several months and were previously announced by Kosmos Energy, bp’s partner on Block C8. The new EPSC signed this week provides for 30 months of studies and planning before submitting a development plan for the field, where a final investment decision (FID) is now expected in the first half of 2025. 50 Tcf of gas have been discovered on Block C8 across the BirAllah discovery in 2015 (Marsouin-1 well) and the Orca-1 discovery of 2019. The reserves are bigger than at the GTA field, where bp and Kosmos Energy expects to start producing gas and exporting LNG next year and are already preparing the expansion of their FLNG hub to 5 mtpa. The BirAllah’s development plan is expected to further maximize local content and build on the domestic capacities developed during the development phase of GTA. The project includes an increased participation from the State of Mauritania – 29% – and will rely on the logistics capacities of the Ndiago Port, the Ministry of Petroleum, Mines, and Energy said. The project is expected to include a domestic and an export component to maximise value from the gas. Mauritania is notably trying to push for domestic gas monetization to expand its power supply, and develop gas-based industries such as petrochemicals and steel.

Total Eren and Chariot Ltd have announced the launch of feasility studies to do-develop Project Nour, a large-scale green hydrogen project in Mauritania. In September 2021, Chariot had already signed an MoU with the Mauritanian Ministry of Petroleum, Mines & Energy to progress the venture. The agreement notably gave Project Nour exclusivity over 14,400km2 of onshore and offshore area where pre-feasibility and feasibility studies would be conducted to generate solar and wind power used in electrolysis to split water and produce green hydrogen and oxygen. The new 50:50 partnership between Total Eren and Chariot will pool additional resources into the project’s feasibility, with a view of developing up to 10 GW in Mauritania. Total Eren already work together on several clean energy projects in Africa, under a long-term joint-development partnership signed in November 2021.

Earlier this week, New Fortress Energy executed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Islamic Republic of Mauritania for the development of the offshore Banda gas reserves into a new energy hub. The project could be commissioned as early as 2024 and would entail the production of natural gas, power, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and blue ammonia for the domestic and export markets. The Banda gas field was discovered by Woodside Energy back in 2002 but was never developed. Reserves are located 60km offshore Nouakchott and are estimated at 1.2 Tcf. Until recently, Tullow Oil was the operating partner of the Banda and Tiof fields, and an equity partner in the Chinguetti oil field were production ceased at the end of 2017. Tullow Oil is currently decommissioning the Chinguetti field and is fully abandoning the Banda and Tiof fields, where five wells and two side-tracks were drilled. Under the MoU signed with the Ministry of Petroleum, Mines and Energy this week, New Fortress Energy will deploy its Fast LNG liquefaction technology to produce LNG for Mauritania’s domestic gas and power markets and for exports. Natural gas will notably be supplied to the existing 180 MW Nouakchott Nord thermal power plant owned by state-utility Somelec, along with a new 120 MW gas-to-power plant. Nouakchott Nord was commissioned in 2015 and relies on 12 turbines with a capacity of 15 MW each, able to run on heavy fuel oil or natural gas. By developing the Banda gas reserves, Mauritania expects to switch its biggest power plant to cleaner fuels while expanding its power generation infrastructure. “The memorandum paves the way for the launch of the necessary technical and commercial feasibility studies for the development of the field and the construction of the new power plant, as well as commercial negotiations to reach the project’s contractual framework, including the power purchase agreement,” said the Ministry of Petroleum, Mines and Energy on its website.

Fugro has been awarded a monitoring contract by Saipem that will see it deploying its InclinoCam® vision technology for the Greater Tortue-Ahmeyim gas project offshore Senegal and Mauritania. The project involves the development of 15 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas discovered on the maritime border between Senegal and Mauritania via a 2.45 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) floating LNG (FLNG) unit in Phase 1 where first gas is expected in Q3 2023. Fugro will start executing its contract with Saipem from December this year and will install more than 190 piles over 6 months from a jack-up barge. “Fugro’s rapid precise positioning will provide actionable Geo-data on the monopile inclination to accelerate the project schedule and a touchless solution that is much safer than conventional monitoring,” the company said in a statement today. Full details on the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) LNG project are available in the “Projects” section within your Hawilti+ research terminal.

Earlier today, Chariot signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Mauritanian Ministry of Petroleum, Mines & Energy to progress Project Nour, a potential green hydrogen development of up to 10 GW. Under the MoU, Project Nour has been given exclusivity over 14,400km2 of onshore and offshore area where pre-feasibility and feasibility studies will be conducted to generate solar and wind power used in electrolysis to split water and produce green hydrogen and oxygen. This deviates from the traditional splitting method that uses natural gas. “Benefiting from Mauritania’s world class solar and wind resources, Project Nour has the potential to allow Mauritania to produce the cheapest green hydrogen in Africa and to become one of the world’s main producers and exporters of green hydrogen and its derivative products, close to potential large European markets,” Chariot said in a statement today.