“Today, June 22, our hydrocarbon company SONIDEP officially starts its upstream oil activities as a national operator,” Nigerien Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine declared on Saturday during a ceremony in Haïdara. , in the Diffa region (south-east), a thousand kilometers from Niamey.
Since its creation in 1977, SONIDEP has mainly been confined to the marketing of petroleum products.
It “is now embarking on the exploration and exploitation of crude oil and gas. It’s a big challenge,” said Mr. Zeine in his speech broadcast on public radio on Sunday.
“Niger has decided to produce its own oil to ensure its economic sovereignty” and “maximize profits for the benefit of our people,” assured customs colonel Ali Seibou Hassane during the ceremony.
On March 2, the Council of Ministers, chaired by General Abdourahamane Tiani, head of the military regime in power since a coup d’état in July 2023, adopted two Production Sharing Contract (CPP) decrees between the State of Niger and SONIDEP.
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These contracts concern an oil block in Bilma (north-east, Agadez region) and three others in Agadem (east, Diffa region), which already hosts oil wells operated since 2011 by the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).
The Agadem blocks are “small” but their “potential could be significant”, while “the proven reserves” of those of Bilma “could make it possible to initiate development work” with a view to “putting them into operation », The government specified.
Since 2011, Niger has been refining some 20,000 barrels per day, mainly diesel and gasoline in Zinder, in the center-east of the country.
Officially, the country’s proven reserves are around two billion barrels.
But at the same time, a diplomatic quarrel with Benin limits oil exports from Niger.
An oil pipeline of nearly 2,000 km is supposed to transport crude from Agadem to the Beninese port of Sèmè-Kpodji, but relations between the two neighbors have been strained since the military coup. Niger still refuses to open their common border and has cut the pipeline valves.
By Le360 Africa (with AFP)
06/24/2024 at 7:31 a.m.
