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WEST AFRICA
Hidden waterfall
Brief history of the country
Togo (the Togolese Republic) is a narrow country sandwiched between Ghana on the west and Benin on the east. Burkina Faso lies to the north while its short southern coastline abuts the Gulf of Guinea.
Togo was sparsely inhabited up until the 11th century when a number of different tribes began to settle along coastal areas in the region. By the end of the 16th century the Ewé tribe from the east and the Mina and Guin tribes from the west were dominant and the region became a trading centre for slaves; part of the eponymous Slave Coast.
In 1884 Germany claimed the coast as a protectorate and gradually extended control inland. By 1905 it had become the colony of Togoland.
During World War 1 Togoland was invaded by the UK from the west (Gold Coast) and France from the east (Dahomey). It was divided into two administrations. In 1957 British Togoland voted to join the Gold Coast as part of Ghana.
Two years later, in 1959, French Togoland became an autonomous republic within the French Union which gained its independence from France in 1960. Since then coups in 1963 and 1967 installed a military dictatorship which has persisted to the present day. Togo’s economy depends on agriculture and it is a regional commercial and trading centre.
Oil and gas summary
Onshore Togo, from north to south comprises savanna, a hilly woodland plateau and a coastal plain with extensive lagoons and marshes. Offshore lies a small area of the Bight of Benin, part of the Gulf of Guinea, which dips into deep waters.
The country has no identified indigenous oil or gas resources, either onshore or offshore. Onshore Togo is underlain by the West African craton and a thin veneer of Cretaceous to Recent sediments laid down after the opening of the south Atlantic. There is insufficient thickness for oil and gas to have been generated.
Offshore Togo is underlain by the Keta-Togo-Benin (KTB) basin, a block and shear-faulted depression formed along the Gulf of Guinea transform fault. Although Togo’s neighbour Ghana, has deep water fields along this transform, Togo is unlikely to achieve any production in the future, as it lacks the Cretaceous turbidite fans that act as reservoirs elsewhere.
One small discovery was made in 1969 (Lome) but this is too small for commercial development. Very little drilling has been has been carried out offshore Togo but Globalshift does not believe production is likely, certainly in the short and medium term.
TOGO
Map and National Flag
West Africa
Capital
Population
Land area (sq kms)
Oil prod (000s b/d)
Gas prod (bcm/yr)
Oil cons (000s b/d)
Gas cons (bcm/yr)
Lome
6.7 mm
56,785
None
None
11.5
None
Government
Togo is a presidential republic. The President is both head of state and head of government.
The president is elected for a 5-year term and the prime minister and Council of Ministers is appointed by the president.
The 81-member National Assembly is also elected for a 5-year term. However, the party system is dominated by the authoritarian Rally for the Togolese People.
The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources is responsible potential oil and gas resources in the country.
Geology and History of Exploration
Somalia is underlain by the northwestern edge of the Somali Plate which in the northern and central parts of Togo are underlain by a basement of early Palaeozoic metamorphic rocks and granites of the West African Craton.
In the coastal zone the craton is overlain by a thin cover of Cretaceous and Cenozoic sediments laid down during and after the opening of the south Atlantic Ocean. The sediments in onshore Togo are of insufficient thickness to develop source rocks and no oil and gas potential is recognised.
Offshore, the Gulf of Guinea formed in the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous by block and transform faulting of an underlying Paleozoic basin as the African, North American, and South American continents separated.
Along the coast in the Gulf of Guinea is a large transform margin fault that runs from Liberia in the west through to Nigeria in the east. A number of deep east-west trending sedimentary basins developed along this transform margin that were primarily filled with Cretaceous and Palaeogene deep marine turbidite fans.
Off Togo is the so-called Keta-Togo-Benin basin (KTB). The Cretaceous sediments in this basin are overlain by post-transform, relatively undeformed Neogene clastics and carbonates.
Cretaceous turbidite fans are productive in other countries along the transform but in Togo there would appear to be no prospects sufficiently large for commercial development.
History - Togo has no oil or gas production and no onshore exploration wells have ever been drilled in the country.
Just 6 exploration and appraisal wells have been drilled offshore, the first in 1969. One discovery (Lome-1), the first well drilled, has been reported but this small field remains non-commercial.
No production has been achieved offshore. There may be deeper water prospects in Togo’s limited offshore waters but risks are high and none of the Cretaceous deep water fan systems that are productive in neighbouring countries have been identified in Togo’s waters.