Sasol Exploration and Production International (E&PI) has aspirations to maintain and extend its gas supply from Southern Mozambique and to grow its gas portfolio in the southern cone of Africa in addition to growing its portfolio in West Africa.
In Mozambique, Sasol and partners have been a catalyst for socio-economic development. Sasol’s capital investment of over $3 billion, day-to-day operations, social investment and skills development have made a significant impact with over 6% contribution to Mozambique’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the period 2004 to 2018 and is also a significant contributor to the national fiscus with $495 million in taxes.
Speaking during a media conference at Africa Oil Week, Senior Vice President for Sasol E&PI, Gilbert Yevi said: “Sasol has sustained over 300 permanent jobs since inception across various businesses and over 90% of the Sasol Mozambique workforce are Mozambicans.
“A plan was co-created with the Government of Mozambique on local content to help drive the growth of local businesses through Sasol’s sustainable operations. This has resulted in Sasol committing to a 71% of procurement spend with Mozambique-owned suppliers and a 50% reduction in spend with foreign suppliers.”
Offshore Gabon, Sasol has about 30% non-operating interest in the Etame Marin Permit and last week, the Etame 9P appraisal well was successfully drilled to a total depth of 10,260 feet (3,127 metres) and discovered additional oil in both the Gamba and Dentale oil sands.
Yevi said: “This successful Etame 9P is the first of many appraisal opportunities that have been identified as the potential to create substantial organic value growth for our shareholders. The well adds additional resources between 2.5 to 10.5 million barrels of oil as published by Vaalco our partner and operator of the fields.”
Yevi said: “We remain focused on delivering value through safe operational execution, and we are hopeful that this is just the first of many positive steps toward our goal of organic production and reserves growth. We will progressively grow our exploration and production portfolio in Africa, with West Africa representing a key pillar of our upstream strategy. We have already developed extensive subsurface and above-ground insight in the region.”
