Japanese oil firms dominate services sector but struggle in exploration and production

摘要

At the urging of the teams of the Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari, the construction contract for the Train 7 gas project was signed in mid-May by the consortium consisting of Italy's Saipem (60%), South Korea's Daewoo (30%) and Japan's Chiyoda (10%). The latter is one of the flagships of Japanese soft power in Africa where it is omnipresent in the oil and gas services sector. Its favourite hunting grounds include Nigeria and Mozambique, where the Japanese petroleum services giant JGC Corp teamed up with Fluor Corp and TechnipFMC in 2019 to land the contract to develop Rovuma LNG onshore facilities (Africa Energy Intelligence, 23/07/19). Another Japanese giant, Modec, recently established itself in Senegal by winning a contract in February to design the FPSO for the Sangomar project being overseen by Woodside Energy. However, these notable successes in the services sectors cannot hide the rather less impressive track record of Japanese companies in the exploration and production (E&P) domain.