After multiple delays, Senegal is now set to start producing gas from the reserves later this year, according to oil and gas giant BP, which is leading the operation.
The World Bank estimates that Africa was home to 40 percent of natural gas discoveries between 2010 and 2020, including one off Senegal’s coast near Saint Louis and another smaller deposit closer to the capital, Dakar. And in 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European leaders, who had previously pledged to move away from fossil fuels, started looking toward Africa’s natural gas to replace flows from Russia.
Environmentalists have warned, however, that such efforts by developing nations could become among the most important drivers of climate change and thwart global attempts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental researchers generally agree that natural gas is preferable to oil and coal, but they also say it is still a fossil fuel that contributes too much to the planet’s warming at a moment when the United Nations has warned that drastic measures are needed to limit climate change.
Developing countries, like Senegal, often look to the World Bank and other global financial institutions for help with such ambitious development. So these natural gas projects will pose a test of the international pledges made at climate conferences to phase out fossil fuels.
Sall, who will leave office next month after two terms, has repeatedly squared off with environmental groups at global climate and energy conferences. In an interview at the presidential palace this month, Sall dismissed the criticisms as “climate fanaticism,” saying that many critics are from developed countries, including the United States, where industrialization has been made possible by fossil fuels.
“How can you tell people in Africa, where half the population does not have electricity … ‘leave your resources in the ground’?” Sall said. “There is no sense in that, and it is not fair. We need an energy transition that is fair.”
Sall is among the leaders and energy analysts who argue that natural gas in particular will be necessary for getting electricity into the homes of the 600 million people on the continent who lack it.
From the shore of Saint Louis, a historic fishing hub in West Africa, infrastructure for processing Senegal’s gas is visible on the horizon. The gas reserve itself, which was discovered by Dallas-based Kosmos Energy, sits about 75 miles offshore along Senegal’s maritime boundary with Mauritania and is more than a mile under the sea floor, making it among the deepest offshore projects in Africa to date.
In 2016, BP signed on as an operator for the field, which officials named “turtle” in French and which they figure has a 30-year production potential. Kosmos estimates that the total gas in place discovered by the company in the region is about 100 trillion cubic feet. Algeria, Egypt and Nigeria are currently Africa’s top producers of natural gas.
The United States remains the world’s biggest producer of natural gas, followed by Russia, Iran and Canada. Natural gas powers about 40 percent of the electrical grid in the United States, according to the federal government, and U.S. exports of natural gas set a record high in the first half of 2023.
For the people of Saint Louis, located between the Senegal River and the Atlantic Ocean, climate change is not a theoretical threat. The United Nations has identified it as the most vulnerable city in all of Africa to rising seas.
Mamadou Thiam, who was displaced from his seaside house because of rising waters, said that when the natural gas project was announced, he and other residents cheered. “Everyone said, ‘Our lives will be better,’” said Thiam, who hopes the gas will bring electricity so he can get a refrigerator and stop walking more than a kilometer to charge his phone.
Nationally, Senegal has a higher electrification rate than most other countries on the continent. Still, 30…
Read More: African discoveries of natural gas pose vexing climate challenge