Dakar — The Minister of Petroleum and Energy Mouhamadou Makhtar Cissé reaffirmed Monday in Dakar the government's option to convert the power plants of SENELEC, Senegal's national electricity company, to gas from 2022, to access energy "cleaner".

"The objective is to arrive in 2022 at the conversion of the SENELEC power stations to gas, to allow us to have cleaner energy", an option which comes on top of the "efforts which have been made in the field of renewable, solar power plants," he said.

Mouhamadou Makhtar Cissé spoke with journalists on the sidelines of the second meeting of the strategic committee of the Grand Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) project for the development and exploitation of the natural gas deposit straddling Senegal and Mauritania.

"If we don't manage to convert our power plants to gas, we will have the best mixes in the world. I am weighing my words carefully, we will have gas, wind, solar in addition to hydraulics", underlined the former managing director of SENELEC.

According to him, the President of the Republic can take advantage of a certain voluntarism on the question of the energy mix, the discoveries of gas and oil coming to consolidate this option of Senegal to have "cleaner energy at a reduced competitive cost and a more attractive consumer price".

"We will make electricity with our own gas, it is certain that we could have a reduced operating cost and much more attractive consumer prices," he added.

Senegal and Mauritania have agreed to jointly develop and exploit the gas field called "Grand Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA), updated in 2016, straddling the maritime border between the two countries.

In February 2018, Senegal and Mauritania signed an Inter-State Cooperation Agreement (ACI) on the development and operation of the GTA field, before signing, in February of the same year, the additional act to the ACI and relating to the tax and customs regime applicable to subcontractors.

The start of production from this gas field is announced in 2022.