Eni Evaluates Five Offshore Oil and Gas Blocks in Senegal

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 15, Senegal's Ministry of Energy and Petroleum signed a memorandum of understanding with Italy's Eni, under which Eni will conduct preliminary studies and assess the oil and gas potential of five offshore oil and gas blocks: SN01M, SN02M, SN03M, SN07M, and SN40M. The agreement was signed during Gastech 2026. Eni will bear all technical research costs. The project is currently still at the preliminary technical evaluation stage, and no formal oil exploration and development contract has yet been formed.

This technical work will focus on analyzing existing 2D and 3D seismic data, existing well data, and related geological and geophysical information, and will assess the oil and gas resource potential of the five blocks on that basis. Senegal's national oil company PETROSEN will participate in the subsequent technical work. At this stage, officials have not yet disclosed the area, water depth, planned number of wells, research period, or investment amount for each of the five blocks.

Senegal's Ministry of Energy and Petroleum has included this cooperation as part of the country's renewed push for upstream oil and gas exploration. Official Senegalese data show that the country's sedimentary basins are currently divided into 32 oil and gas blocks, of which 7 are onshore blocks and 25 are offshore blocks, and 10 blocks are already under oil and gas exploration and production sharing contracts. Between 2014 and 2017, oil fields such as FAN, SNE, FAN South, and SNE North, as well as gas discoveries such as Grand Tortue/Ahmeyim, Teranga, and Yaakar, were successively discovered offshore Senegal.

The scope of study for these five blocks is not equivalent to Eni having already obtained exploration rights. At this stage, what Eni has obtained is a cooperative arrangement for technical evaluation of existing data. Whether it subsequently enters the formal exploration and development stage will still depend on the evaluation results as well as subsequent contractual and regulatory procedures. Reuters confirmed that the content of this agreement is for Eni to fund and carry out technical studies, geological and geophysical analysis, in order to determine the exploration potential of the five blocks.

From the perspective of project stage, SN01M, SN02M, SN03M, SN07M, and SN40M are still objects of preliminary resource evaluation, and no drilling plans, development plans, or final investment arrangements have been announced. The next substantive milestone will be the completion of the evaluation of seismic data, well data, and geological data, and based on the research results, the determination of whether to proceed to a higher-level exploration contract and drilling procedure.