COPETAO embarks on offshore drilling

Total Petroleum Company in West Africa (COPETAO), a subsidiary of the CFP, decided in 1964 to relaunch oil exploration in Senegal. But not just anywhere! In the maritime zone of its Casamance license obtained in Kolda. This was a first for the Group, which did not yet have any direct experience of drilling on the continental shelf. A platform designed to explore between 7 and 60 metres in depth is therefore being built in the Netherlands. Named "Île-de-FrancePays FranceShow more", it left Rotterdam on January 6 and reached Dakar on February 14, 1966 after a 5,000-kilometer voyage. A real technical gamble.