(Reuters) – Australia’s Woodside Energy Group Ltd said on Tuesday it expected the first barrel of oil from the Senegal Sangomar project in Africa to flow through by mid-2024, compared with the initial target of late 2023.
Woodside, which holds 82% of the oil and gas field being developed off West African country Senegal, also hiked the project cost to a range of $4.9 billion-$5.2 billion, an increase of 7%-13% from the prior estimate of $4.6 billion.
The delay comes in the wake of unexpected remedial work needed on the floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility of the Sangomar Field Development Phase 1 project.
“We have taken the prudent decision to have the remedial work conducted while the FPSO remains at the shipyard in Singapore,” Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill said in a statement.
The company, one of the world’s top 10 independent oil and gas producers, noted that the overall project was 88% complete as of June 30 and said any change in the project schedule had no impact on its production guidance for 2023.
Separately, Woodside has started marketing a new African crude oil from Sangomar just as Europe is seeking new supplies to replace sanctioned Russian oil amid extended global output cuts into 2024.
(Reporting by Roushni Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
