Mauritania

Mooring operations underway following arrival of the GTA FPSO on-site at the maritime border of Mauritania and Senegal.

After successfully identifying prospects offshore Namibia with Shell and TotalEnergies, QatarEnergy is now expanding its African footprint into Mauritania.

The authors write of an efficiency-optimization effort in the planning and construction of a West African breakwater for LNG service that resulted in increased financial and environmental benefits.

The paper reviews an operator’s deepwater field project offshore Mauritania, for which several techniques were considered with respect to decommissioning a subsea pipeline system at water depths of 700 to 960 m.

A total of 12.2 billion BOE was discovered worldwide in 2019—the highest volume in 4 years, with offshore regions dominating the list of new deposits.

Three appraisal wells drilled this year—GTA-1, Yakaar-2, and Orca-1—targeted nine hydrocarbon-bearing zones, encountering gas in high-quality reservoirs in all zones and yielding a combined 160 m of net pay.

The Orca-1 and Marsouin-1 wells have derisked up to 50 Tcf of gas initially in place from the Cenomanian and Albian plays in the BirAllah area, more than sufficient to support a world-scale LNG project, partner Kosmos Energy said.

The E&P company said that a reduction in its interests for projects off the coast of the West African nations should still happen by the end of this year. This includes the large Greater Tortue Ahmeyim LNG project, which is set to start up in 2022.

The vessel will produce approximately 2.5 mtpa of LNG for the project, which is expected to deliver first gas in 2022.

The two companies will collaborate to define the technology and equipment scope for an initial four-well development phase for BP’s major West African offshore gas project.