A new natural gas project off Senegal makes fishing communities feel threatened

GUET NDAR, Senegal — It's impossible to miss the gas platform off the coast of northern Senegal. Its flare stack burns day and night above the rolling breakers.

The natural gas project, a joint venture between British energy giant BP and U.S.-based Kosmos Energy, started operations on the final day of 2024. It is meant to bring jobs to the densely populated fishing community of Guet Ndar, just outside the old colonial capital of Saint Louis.

The gas extraction plant, the deepest in Africa, is aimed at helping to transform Senegal's stagnant economy after the discovery just over a decade ago of oil and gas off the country's coast. The first offshore oil project also began last year.

Fishermen say the project is killing their livelihoods

Mariam Sow, one of the few remaining sellers in the once-thriving fish market, said the decline began in 2020 when the platform started rising from the sea.

''This market used to be full every day,'' Sow said, gesturing at the barren lot. The nearby beach is now occupied by hundreds of unused boats.

Fishing is central to life in coastal Senegal. It employs over 600,000 people, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The country exported nearly half a billion dollars worth of fish in 2022, according to think tank Chatham House, citing international trade data.

What's the gas project about?

The Grand Tortue Ahmeyim project plans to extract gas off Senegal and neighboring Mauritania. According to BP, the field could produce 2.3 million tons of liquefied natural gas every year.

Last year, Senegal elected President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who ran on an anti-establishment platform. He pledged to maximize the country's natural resources, including by renegotiating what he called unfair contracts with foreign firms and distributing revenues to the population.

''I will proceed with the disclosure of the effective ownership of extractive companies (and) with an audit of the mining, oil, and gas sector," he said in his first address. It was not clear whether contract renegotiation efforts had begun, or whether they would include the gas project.

The fishermen of Guet Ndar say the benefits promised by both the project and Senegal's government have not materialized. The cost of living remains high, and the price of natural gas, a major cooking source in Senegal, is still rising. Lower gas prices had been a major selling point for the gas project.

Mohamed Sow, a shopkeeper in Dakar, said his customers complain that a 12-liter gas canister has gone from 5,000 CFA ($8.50) to 8,000 CFA ($13.80) in the past few years.

''It's impossible to keep raising the price,'' he said.

Senegal's government did not respond to requests for comment.

The fishing community near the project says it has noticed more signs of trouble.

A leak that took weeks to fix

Soon after the gas project's production began, fishermen said they noticed a large number of bubbles in the sea. BP cited a temporary gas leak that ''had no immediate impact on ongoing production activities from the remaining wells."

The leak took weeks to fix. BP did not say how much gas — largely methane — leaked into the ocean, or what caused a leak so early in the new project.

In a response to written questions, BP said ''the environmental impact of the release was assessed as negligible" considering the ''low rate'' of release.

The environmental charity Greenpeace, however, called the effects of such spills on the environment significant.

''The GTA field is home to the world's largest deep-water coral reef, a unique ecosystem. A single spill can wipe out decades of marine biodiversity, contaminate food chains and destroy habitat,'' it said in a statement.

Sitting outside a BP-built and branded fish refrigeration unit meant to help community relations, Mamadou Sarr, the president of the Saint Louis fishermen's union, talked about the concerns.

Sarr asserted that fish have become more scarce as they are attracted to the platform and away from several reefs that the people of Guet Ndar had fished for centuries.

Drawing in the sand, he explained how the fish, drawn by the project's lights and underwater support structures, no longer visit their old ''homes.'' Areas around the platforms are off-limits to fishermen.

Sarr also said an artificial reef that BP is building lies in the path of ships that regularly visit the structures, keeping the fish away.

A fisherman's life

One fisherman, Abdou, showed off his catch after two days at sea: two insulated boxes full of fish, each about the size of an oil drum. A box of fish fetches 15,000 CFA, or $26.

Prior to the gas project, he said, he would get four or five boxes per two-day trip. Now, getting two is a win.

That worsens a problem already created by overfishing by foreign vessels.

BP stressed that face-to-face talks with members of the community about such issues are ongoing, and noted its community-facing projects such as microfinance and vocational training programs in the region.

Sarr said that despite its promises, the government failed to consider his community when agreeing to the gas project.

''This is our land and sea, why don't we get a voice?'' he asked.

He and others expressed irony that the refrigeration unit sitting next to them cannot be opened. The key is ''somewhere in Dakar'' Sarr said, and locals said they have never seen inside it.

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