Sierra Leone Has Estimated Hydrocarbon Reserves of Approximately 30 Billion Recoverable Barrels of Oil Equivalent, According to a Recently Concluded Round of Seismic Research

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

African countries are increasingly making headlines for their efforts to develop local oil and gas reserves, despite significant opposition from foreign environmental organizations and international lenders. The most recent country to join the oil and gas sector is Sierra Leone, which has ambitious plans for its hydrocarbon resources.

According to oilprice.com, a leading online energy news site that provides extensive coverage of the global oil, gas, and broader energy sectors, including alternative energy and geopolitics, the reserve is estimated to be worth over US $2.31 trillion.

Earlier this month, Sierra Leone concluded a round of seismic research, hoping the findings would attract international oil companies after several discoveries that failed to yield commercial volumes of hydrocarbons.

U.S. Anadarko and Russia’s Lukoil explored the country’s waters but did not make any significant discoveries, although Anadarko found potentially commercial oil at several offshore sites around a decade ago.

Sierra Leone is set to launch a new licensing round later this year, based on the outcomes of a recent survey. ‘We are currently reprocessing that data with our multi-client partners, TGS, and we hope to present something to the market in October,’ stated the head of the country’s Petroleum Director General, as reported by Reuters last week.

Foday Mansaray noted that several major oil companies, including Shell, Hess Corp., Murphy Oil, and Brazil’s Petrobras, had purchased the new data.

An estimated 30 billion recoverable barrels of oil equivalent exist, with about 3 billion barrels located in a single discovery made by Anadarko over 10 years ago: the Vega prospect.

The development of the prospect has stalled since its discovery, as the company determined, based on early exploration, that it was not commercially viable. The same issue has occurred with Anadarko’s three other discoveries and Lukoil’s Savannah discovery.

Mansaray conveyed positive expectations for the future of the nation’s oil and gas sector following the discovery.

This story is still developing, and updates will follow as new information becomes available.

Theo Edwards for YAME Digital

ABOUT: Oilprice.com is owned by Advanced Media Solutions, with James Stafford as its founder and publisher. It is a leading online energy news site that offers extensive coverage of the global oil and gas sectors, as well as broader energy topics, including alternative energy and geopolitics. The site is widely recognized for its analysis and reporting and is often cited by major financial news outlets such as CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Nasdaq, and Fortune. Oilprice.com is generally regarded as mostly factual in its reporting, with a focus on energy industry news, prices, and analysis.