Le Pays De France - Senegal sets up commission to review oil and gas deals

The West African country, ranked among the 25 least developed in the world, joined the club of oil producers in June and is due to start producing natural gas by the end of the year.

President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who swept to victory in March on a promise of radical reform, declared an audit of the oil, gas and mining sectors as one of his first announcements as head of state.

The new authorities say the contracts signed by the former government are unfavourable to the country.

"We regretted and vigorously condemned the way in which 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 which was broadcast by public television channel RTS on Monday evening.

"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 is made up of senior Senegalese government officials and experts in the oil and mining, tax and economic fields.

"The logic is to work scientifically, rigorously and methodically on all aspects of these agreements. The first exercise will be to review these agreements in the light of the various legal bases on which they are based," Sonko said.

Senegal became an oil producer in June when production began at the Sangomar offshore oil field, operated by Australian group Woodside Energy.

Senegal also shares the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) liquefied natural gas field on its maritime border with Mauritania, jointly developed by British energy giant BP, the American company Kosmos Energy, the Mauritanian hydrocarbons company SMH and the Senegalese state-owned Petrosen.

Production at the gas field, on which the two neighbours are pinning their hopes for development, is scheduled to begin later this year.

(V.Blanchet--LPdF)