Can Senegal supply Europe with gas?

Dakar says it is ready to deliver liquefied natural gas (LNG) from 2023. And the customers are not lacking. Germany is in talks “intensive” with Senegal to participate in projects around the gas resources of the West African country, which is itself ready to supply Europe. Win-win: Senegal is looking for investments to develop its infrastructure and Europe for sources of supply to reduce its dependence on Russian gas.

Senegal, a West African country, places a lot of hope in the future joint exploitation with Mauritania of the gas and oil fields discovered in the Atlantic in recent years. The Senegalese president has planned the start of production in December 2023, at a rate of 2.5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas per year initially, and 10 million in 2030.

“We are ready, we in Senegal in any case, to work with a view to supplying the European market with LNG.”

Macky Sall, President of Senegal

at a press conference

Berlin and Dakar want to go further in cooperation. Germany is already engaged in Senegal in renewable energy or energy storage projects, and discussions have started regarding gas. “I asked the Chancellor to support us in the development of these gas resources, for the production of LNG from Africa to Europe, and also for gas-to-power”, that is, the production of gas intended to supply local power plants, said the Senegalese president. Macky Sall is against stopping funding for the exploitation of fossil fuels in the name of the fight against global warming. Twenty countries, including the United States and France, committed at the COP26 climate conference in 2021 to end by the end of 2022 the foreign financing of fossil energy projects without technical carbon capture.

Senegal and Mauritania embarked on exploration a few years ago. The two countries have pooled their resources to set up one of the largest gas fields in Africa: the GTA (Grande Tortue Ahmeyim) which extends on both sides of the maritime border of Senegal and Mauritania. Reserves are estimated at 1,400 billion m³ of gas. The two countries will share the revenue estimated between 80 and 90 billion dollars over 20 years. The construction site took a little delay because of the pandemic.