Woodside abandons Sangomar sale plans

Australian energy giant Woodside has abandoned its previous plans related to the sell-down of equity interest in its operated Sangomar project located off Senegal.

Woodside started discussions with interested parties for the proposed sell-down of its equity in the Sangomar project last year following the completion of the acquisition of the entire participating interest in the project from compatriot FAR Limited. As a result of this acquisition, Woodside’s participating interest in the RSSD joint venture has increased to 82 per cent for the Sangomar exploitation area and to 90 per cent for the remaining RSSD evaluation area.

The energy giant planned to sell down its participating interest in the RSSD joint venture to approximately 40-50 per cent during 2021. However, in its 2Q 2022 report on Thursday, Woodside said it is ending the current sell-down process for Sangomar.

Woodside Energy CEO, Meg O’Neill, said: “Following extensive discussions with potential new partners, we have decided to discontinue the sell-down of equity in Sangomar.”

At the end of the second quarter, Phase 1 of the project was 63 per cent complete, compared to 56 per cent at the end of the previous quarter.

“Installation of the mooring system for the floating production, storage and offloading facility at the Sangomar field has been completed and the second drillship, the Ocean BlackHawk, commenced drilling in July,” O’Neill added.

With this, Diamond Offshore’s Ocean BlackHawk joined another Diamond-owned drillship, the Ocean BlackRhino, which has been working on the project for about a year now. The first development well on the Sangomar project was completed in September 2021.

According to Woodside, the FPSO for the project is expected to be relocated in October 2022 from the current shipyard in China to the Keppel Shipyard in Singapore to complete commissioning. China’s Cosco started converting a very large crude carrier (VLCC) into an FPSO for the project last year.

As recently reported, the subsea installation campaign, which was previously expected to begin in 2Q 2022, is still planned to begin in 3Q 2022. The first oil is expected in 2023.