Energy Capital & Power (ECP) is happy to announce a significant addition to the itinerary for this September’s MSGBC Oil, Gas & Power Conference in the form of a Gambian Spotlight session.
By offering crucial insight into the country’s second bid licensing round, the session aims to highlight The Gambia’s potential as a frontier upstream destination, luring fresh international investment flows and sparking the creation of a local oil and gas market.
Among the speakers who have been confirmed are Jerreh Barrow, Director-General of The Gambia’s Petroleum Commission, Yaya Barrow, Managing Director of the Gambia National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Cany Jobe, Director of Exploration and Production at the GNPC, Lamin Camara, Permanent Secretary, and Kemo Ceesay, Director of Energy at the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy.
Juwara, the National Water and Electricity Company’s managing director (NAW) Although Gambian exploration is still in its infancy, regional mega discoveries like Mauritania’s 13 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas in BirAllah, 15 tcf in the transnational Mauritania-Senegal Greater Tortue Ahmeyim development, and 20 tcf in Senegal’s Yakaar-Teranga bode well for The Gambia, particularly in light of Australia-listed FAR’s discovery of a potential With six active blocks, The Gambia already anticipates a 5.1 percent GDP growth this year.
The five offshore blocks and two onshore blocks that will be released in The Gambia’s second licensing round are starting to look more and more appealing as investment opportunities given the oil find estimates from FAR.
Several different multinational oil companies are now active in the area, including Norway’s PetroNor, Britain’s bp, Ireland’s Tullow Oil, Malaysia’s Petronas, America’s Kosmos Energy, Australia’s FAR, and Woodside.
With seven new blocks soon to be put up for auction and FAR announcing a farm-down of its 1.5 billion barrel potential oil discovery in the Panthera, Jatto, and Malo prospects – three times the size of Senegal’s $4.8 billion Sangomar megadevelopment – there is currently a unique opportunity for newer players to enter the country’s resource-rich fields.
At the roundtable focus session, speakers will argue persuasively for foreign direct investment (FDI) in The Gambia while discussing the second licensing cycle. Citizens of the country are particularly well-positioned to profit from the country’s increasing FDI because the country has ensured an integrated system of corporate local content accountability through the Gambia’s Petroleum Exploration, Development and Production Licenses, updated with a model agreement released this year.
The model stipulates requirements that require multinational companies operating in-country to submit an annual local content plan, make financial contributions to internal and government local content funds of at least 1% of operating expenses each, and use local goods and services when equivalent to within 1% of international competitors’ price-points, targeting a 1% local expenditure of production costs.
Additionally, regardless of position, foreign employees may only make up 20 percent of the entire personnel of multinational corporations under the 2015 changes to the Gambian Investment and Export Promotion Agency Act, supporting the development of local talent.
The previous year, contracts worth $2.5 billion were inked during ECP events.
The prospects for the country’s own industry have never been better with the GNPC and Ministry of Petroleum and Energy serving as partners for this year’s premier west African congress, which includes in-panel discussions throughout the two-day event and The Gambia serving as the host of a special Roundtable Spotlight session.