Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko announced on Thursday, April 23, 2026, the signing yesterday of a joint withdrawal agreement between Kosmos Energy and PETROSEN from the offshore Cayar block license, known as Yakaar-Teranga. This agreement, concluded without financial compensation for the Senegalese state, paves the way for a reassignment of the license, which is expected to be exclusively entrusted to the national company PETROSEN, subject to validation by ministerial decree.
Considered one of the most promising deposits in the Senegalese sedimentary basin, Yakaar-Teranga was initially awarded to Frank TIMIS in a context deemed opaque by the current authorities, along with the Saint-Louis block, shared with Mauritania. The resumption of this permit is the logical continuation of the expressed desire by the Diomaye-Sonko governance to review the oil and gas contracts inherited from previous regimes, with the aim of strengthening national sovereignty over natural resources.
The Senegalese Prime Minister welcomes this development as the culmination of a decade of efforts towards better governance of the extractive sector. Ousmane Sonko hopes to see other contractual revisions occur as part of this policy of rebalancing energy partnerships.
