Four years in the making: Africa’s first LNG-to-power project up and running off Senegal

A floating power plant from the fleet of Türkiye’s Karpowership has started producing energy using liquefied natural gas (LNG) off the coast of Senegal.

As a country with a relatively short oil and gas history and a nascent LNG industry, Senegal has managed to pull off the feat of producing energy from its floating power plant, known as a powership, off the coast of Dakar. The Turkish player claims this is the continent’s first LNG-to-power project, done in cooperation with the Société nationale d’électricité du Sénégal (Senelec).

The firm’s floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), LNGT Africa, supplied regasified LNG to a powership from Karpowership’s fleet. According to Karpowership, the combination of FSRUs and powerships is a groundbreaking solution for introducing LNG use for power generation in countries with no natural gas infrastructure or supply.

The latest accomplishment was preceded by the completion of another first: ship-to-ship (STS) transfer of LNG between LNGT Africa and a LNG supply vessel off the coast of Senegal, as disclosed by Karpowership’s Country Manager, Ayman Bouderbela.

Following the STS operation, power generation was achieved by transferring gas from the FSRU to Karpowership’s powership KPS 10 on April 29, 2025. Generating electricity using natural gas is described as the beginning of a new chapter in Senegal’s energy mix.

The FSRU arrived in Senegalese waters in May 2021 and was later connected to Karadeniz Powership Ayşegül Sultan through gas pipelines. The latter has a capacity of 235MW and has been in operation since October 2019, supplying 15% of Senegal’s electricity with 220MW of power to Senegal’s grid.

Since then, the Turkish player said it ramped up its supply capabilities to cover 25% of the nation’s electricity needs, with a current installed capacity of 335 MW via its power barges stationed at the Port of Dakar.

The FSRU, which was developed by Sembcorp Marine (now known as Seatrium) in Singapore, is 272 meters long and has a capacity of 125,000 cubic meters. It is owned by Karmol, a joint venture between Karpowership and Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL).

In 2022, Karpowership and MOL reached a deal with Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and MUFG Bank to provide $71 million in funding for the FSRU in Senegal.

This comes a little over a year after the country produced its first oil from an offshore field at Woodside’s Sangomar development. This was followed by the first offshore gas production from BP’s Greater Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) Phase 1 in late December 2024, jointly developed by Senegal and Mauritania, and LNG production from the same project in February 2025.

The transition to natural gas is thought to represent a major step forward in the production of cleaner energy, in line with the Senegalese government’s ambitions to reduce electricity production costs and accelerate the national energy transition. A gas-to-power strategy forms part of its Emerging Senegal Plan, introduced in 2018.

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