Senegal has large gas reserves off its coast. During his visit to the capital, Dakar, Chancellor Scholz offered to help promote resources. The SPD politician also talks to President Sall about Ukraine.
On his first trip to Africa since taking office, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Senegalese President Macky Sall announced intensive talks on cooperation in the field of gas production. There are very intensive discussions at expert level, said Scholz on Sunday at a joint press conference with Sall in Dakar. Scholz is visiting the Sahel state of Niger today and South Africa on Tuesday.
Senegal has high hopes for exploiting gas and oil fields discovered in the Atlantic in recent years and wants to work with Mauritania on this. The President of Senegal wants to start production in December 2023, initially 2.5 million tons of liquid gas per year are planned, and then 10 million tons in 2030.
His country is ready to supply the European market with liquid gas in the future, Sall said at the press conference with Scholz. He asked the Chancellor for support in developing gas resources, in liquefied gas production in Africa for Europe and also in gas production for local power plants.
Germany is already involved in Senegal in the field of renewable energies and energy storage. Sall again declined to halt funding for the exploitation of fossil fuels, citing the fight against climate change. 1.3 billion people live on the African continent, 600 million of whom have no access to electricity. “You also have to support industrialization,” Sall said.
The chancellor will be accompanied by a business delegation on the trip to Africa. During the trip, Scholz wants to talk about economic relations, security policy and climate protection – according to government circles, but also to counteract Russia’s massive attempts to influence Africa.
In addition to energy, Scholz and Sall also spoke about the continuation of food exports from Ukraine. According to Scholz, hunger and “new trouble spots” are threatening the Russian war of aggression in the important grain country. The Chancellor promised to “do everything we can”. In addition, the two spoke about the security situation in the Sahel zone, where both German and Senegalese troops are deployed.
Sall, currently head of the African Union (AU), is also a guest at the G7 summit in Germany in June at Scholz’s invitation. “A signal of strong democracies should go from there. We want to start initiatives for climate and sustainable investments, create food security worldwide and improve global health,” wrote Scholz on Twitter. The Senegalese President also announced plans to travel to Russia and Ukraine shortly. Moscow had issued a corresponding invitation, he said. Of course he will also travel to Kyiv.
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