Africa Oil & Gas: Bissau, Senegal negotiate new joint resource exploitation contract

Guinea-Bissau is negotiating with Senegal a new agreement on joint exploitation of petroleum resources and presented a set of proposals in the third round of talks held during the first three days of August in Dakar, the head of Bissau’s delegation said on Monday.

Apolinário de Carvalho, a high-level Foreign Ministry official and current ambassador of Guinea-Bissau in Brussels, stated that the Dakar talks had “gone well” and that the Guinea-Bissauan side had “explained to the Senegalese side that the historic mistake” of the division agreed in 1993 “has to be corrected.”

That decision allocated Senegal 85 percent and Guinea-Bissau 15 percent of revenue resulting from the eventual exploitation of hydrocarbons in the common area.

“We want a new agreement that reflects the interests of both countries,” de Carvalho said, cited by Lusa news agency. Guinea-Bissau “is nowadays better prepared” than in the past to defend its viewpoint, he stressed.

The delegations will meet again this coming 27, 28 and 29 August, this time in Bissau, to finish the draft revision of the new resource sharing agreement for oil, gas and fisheries, which will be signed later by the leaders of the two nations.

The area in question encompasses about 25,000 square kilometres of continental shelf and is managed by a cooperation and management agency based in Dakar, currently headed by former Guinea-Bissauan Prime Minister Artur Silva.

The joint maritime development zone is considered to be rich in fishery resources, with each state allocated 50 percent of the respective exploitation, and also in hydrocarbons (oil and gas), though still in the prospecting phase. (Macauhub)