Less than two years after the discovery of the offshore field called Baleine, located off the coast of Côte d’Ivoire, the Ivorian government and its Italian partner ENI announced the official start of the first phase of oil and natural gas production. A record. Baleine is “the largest hydrocarbon discovery in the Ivorian sedimentary basin” and the “first zero emissions project” in Africa, ENI said in a statement.
Production will be managed jointly with the Ivorian oil company Petroci.
Initially, production will be provided by a floating unit capable of processing 15,000 barrels of oil per day and approximately 25 million cubic feet per day of associated gas.
The start of phase 2 is scheduled for the end of 2024 and will bring production from the field to 50,000 bpd of oil and approximately 70 million cubic feet per day of gas.
The third phase of development aims to increase production from the field to 150,000 bpd of oil and 200 million cubic feet per day of gas.
The project “builds on the best available technologies to reduce emissions” of greenhouse gases, says ENI. The “remaining emissions will be offset” through various initiatives, “including the provision of improved stoves to local communities, which eliminate the consumption of wood or charcoal for cooking”.
ENI’s presence in Côte d’Ivoire dates back to the 1960s. Apart from the two blocks of the Baleine field, ENI has four other blocks in deep waters in Côte d’Ivoire, jointly with its partner Petroci. Côte d’Ivoire aims to strengthen the internal electricity market, as well as access to energy, while the current rate of coverage of the territory is 80%. Furthermore, these new discoveries will enable Abidjan to strengthen its role as an energy hub in the sub-region. The country already has one of the most extensive electricity systems in West Africa with between 10 and 20% of its electricity production exported to Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Benin, Togo and Liberia.
In addition to ENI, several international companies, such as Total or Tullow Oil, have announced major discoveries in recent years in the country, which still remains a modest producer of hydrocarbons, with around 30,000 barrels per day, far behind the four major producers on the continent. namely Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Libya.