Woodside boosts Senegal oil reserves, supplies local refinery

Australia's Woodside Energy has boosted reserves at its giant Sangomar oil field offshore Senegal and expects the project to continue producing at its 100,000 b/d plateau through the second quarter, it said.

In a statement Feb. 17, the company said Senegal's inaugural oil development, which came online in June 2024, had ramped up in under nine weeks, "achieving a 94% production reliability in Q4."

"Early performance from the S500 reservoirs has demonstrated excellent productivity," it said. "This has resulted in proved and proved plus probable reserves additions of 16.2 MMboe and 15.4 MMboe respectively."

The total cost for the first phase of the Sangomar project was approximately $5 billion, Woodside said, at the lower end of its previously estimated range of $4.9 billion-$5.2 billion.

"The project is forecast to continue producing on plateau into the second quarter of 2025, approximately a year after first oil," it said.

Woodside has not yet specified whether it will undertake a second or third phase of the project. It added that "future development decisions will be informed by 12-24 months of production data."

The project encompasses 24 wells, including 12 production wells. Crude loads from the 1.3 million-barrel Leopold Sedar Senghor floating production, storage and offloading vessel, named after Senegal's first president and sitting some 100 km offshore Dakar.

Woodside, which also has assets in Namibia and the Republic of Congo, holds an 82% stake in the project, alongside state-run Petrosen with 12%.

Domestic refining

Senegal exported its first Sangomar crude in July, ramping up from 60,000 b/d to 100,000 b/d within two months, according to data from S&P Global Commodities at Sea. China has emerged as the biggest buyer of its crude, followed by Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.

Sangomar crude has medium sour qualities analogous to grades such as Oman and Norway's Johan Sverdrup, according to Woodside.

However, in 2025 some Sangomar barrels have been earmarked for the local market. CAS data shows the country's crude exports falling to 37,000 b/d in January and 61,000 b/d so far in February.

On Feb. 13, the African Refinery Company, known as SAR, which operates Dakar's 30,000 b/d refinery, said it had refined 650,000 barrels of Senegalese crude into diesel, kerosene, gasoline and butane, marking the first time Senegalese crude had been processed domestically.

The country's sole refinery is currently undergoing an upgrade, with plans to increase the capacity to 5 million mt/year and move to produce fuels that comply with both AFRI 6 and Euro 5 emission standards.

Beyond oil and products, Senegal also became a gas producer at the end of December, with the startup of the BP-operated Greater Tortue Ahmeyim gas project on the country's maritime border with Mauritania. That project is expected to produce 2.3 million mt/year of LNG in its first phase.

Senegalese officials, including former president Macky Sall, have seen the nascent oil and gas sector as key to revamping Senegal's economy and stopping the flow of young Senegalese to Europe.

Yet the new government of Bassirou Diomaye Faye has floated audits and contract renegotiations since winning a landslide election victory in March 2024, rattling some foreign investors.