The Chinguetti oilfield is an oil field located off the Mauritanian coast in 800 m water depth. It was discovered by the Australian firm

Woodside Petroleum Woodside Energy Group Ltd (formerly Woodside Petroleum Ltd) is an Australian petroleum exploration and production company. Woodside is the operator of oil and gas production in Australia and also Australia's largest independent dedicated oil an ...

in 2001. It is named after the city of

Chinguetti Chinguetti () ( ar, شنقيط, translit=Šinqīṭ) is a ksar and a medieval trading center in northern Mauritania, located on the Adrar Plateau east of Atar. Founded in the 13th century as the center of several trans-Saharan trade routes, ...

. Relatively modest in size, originally estimated at , this deposit is nonetheless significant as the first commercial discovery of oil in the country, opening a new region for offshore petroleum exploration. Production of began in early 2006 via an

FPSO A floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit is a floating vessel used by the offshore oil and gas industry for the production and processing of hydrocarbons, and for the storage of oil. An FPSO vessel is designed to receive h ...

. Production declined rapidly after the start of production due to geological complexity. In November 2006 Woodside issued a statement cutting the field's

2P reserves Proven reserves (also called measured reserves, 1P, and reserves) is a measure of fossil fuel energy reserves, such as oil reserves, natural gas reserves, and coal reserves. It is defined as the " antity of energy sources estimated with reasonabl ...

to . Woodside expect production of to in the next few years
reference
A smaller oil field, Tevet, was discovered in the same area in early 2005, and will probably developed as a satellite - meaning that it will be exploited by wells tied back to Chinguetti's platform. Two larger discoveries, Banda and Tiof, were also made off the coast of Mauritania, by the Woodside consortium in 2003. In 2004, Woodside had agreed to invest US$ 600 million in developing the Chinguetti project. However, in February 2006, the Mauritanian military junta led by

Ely Ould Mohamed Vall Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall ( ar, إعلي ولد محمد فال ''I‘lī Wald Muḥammad Fāl''; 1953 – 5 May 2017) was a Mauritanian political and military figure. Following a coup d'état in August 2005, he served as the transitional ...

denounced amendments to an oil contract made by former President

Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya ( ar, معاوية ولد سيد أحمد الطايع, Ma‘āwiyah wuld Sīdi Aḥmad aṭ-Ṭāya‘ / Mu'awiya walad Sayyidi Ahmad Taya; born 28 November 1941) is a Mauritanian military officer who served as the ...

with Woodside Petroleum, the controversial amendments, which Mauritanian authorities declared that they had been signed "outside the legal framework of normal practice, to the great detriment of our country", could cost Mauritania up to $200 million a year, according to ''BBC News''. It was later sold to

PETRONAS Petroliam Nasional Berhad (National Petroleum Limited), commonly known as Petronas, is a Malaysian petroleum, oil and natural gas, gas company. Established in 1974 and wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia, the corporation is vested w ...

group. Production ceased in December 2017, and an abandonment programme was begun in 2019.

References

External links

page from offshore technologypage from Hardman Resources (one of the partners)Chinguetti field information from FMC Technologies
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chinguetti Oil Field Geography of Mauritania Geology of Mauritania Oil fields of Mauritania