Côte d’Ivoire used the platform of the Africa Oil Week to seek Expressions of Interest for its five blocks in the oil and gas sector. Speaking at the event, Jean Baptiste Aka, Chief of Staff at Ministry of Petroleum, Energy & Renewable Energy, Côte d’Ivoire officially released a request for Expressions of Interest (EOI) in five blocks located on the eastern side of the sedimentary basin.
The five blocks, which includes three new and two existing have advantages like shallow waters, good geological data, and proximity to existing discoveries and infrastructures. Since 2011, Côte d’Ivoire granted 47 exploration licenses. Several oil and gas deposits have been discovered in the country, with most of them gone into production. This year Côte d’Ivoire recorded average production of 34,800 bopd of crude oil and 208 mmcf/d of natural gas. In the upstream sector, exploration activities have been conducted during the past nine years. Several exploration licenses have been granted, large seismic data acquired, and many exploration wells drilled.
. The government is keen to capitalise on its geographic position and the quality of infrastructures to become the energy hub of the West African sub-region, Mr Aka added. It also plans to strengthen the value chain from upstream exploration and production to downstream activities including the development of oil and gas infrastructures. Ambroise Niamien, technical advisor for hydrocarbons, at Côte d’Ivoire’s hydrocarbon directorate explained that for the time being, the bidding process is not being considered. The future course of action will be decided after the conclusion of the expression of interest process.
Aka assured that Côte d’Ivoire has a stable fiscal regime which is based upon production sharing contracts. After the capital is recovered by the operator, the balance of the production is split as per the negotiated terms under the PSC between the consortium and the state. Additionally, he added the country offered tax exemptions.
