Senegal Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko announced that the government has established a team of specialists to “rebalance” oil and gas contracts, in line with a promise made during the election campaign to renegotiate hydrocarbon agreements.
The West African nation recently became an oil producer in June and is scheduled to commence natural gas production by the end of the year.
President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who won by a large margin in March with a pledge of substantial change, announced an examination of the oil, gas, and mining industries as one of his initial acts as president.
The new leaders assert that the contracts signed by the former government were unfavourable to the country.
“We regretted and vigorously condemned how agreements and conventions were concluded, most of the time to the detriment of the strategic interests of Senegal and its people,” Sonko said at the launch of the Commission.
“We had made a firm commitment to revisit these various agreements, to re-examine them and to work to rebalance them in the national interest,” he said.
The commission comprises senior Senegalese government officials and oil, mining, tax, and economics experts.
In June, Senegal started producing oil at the Sangomar offshore oil field, operated by the Australian company Woodside Energy.
Senegal and Mauritania jointly developed the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) liquefied natural gas field on their maritime border. The project is a collaboration between British energy giant BP, American company Kosmos Energy, Mauritania’s SMH, and Senegal’s state-owned Petrosen.
The production at the gas field, which both countries rely on for their development, is set to commence later this year.