The National Association of Drilling Professionals (ANPF), during a general assembly held in Thiès, highlighted institutional, training, competitive, and water resource protection challenges. Its members expressed their concerns about the lack of a formal framework structuring all stakeholders in the sector, which faces a multitude of difficulties.

An alert was issued following a shared diagnosis, which enabled the ANPF to identify several major obstacles affecting the drilling sector in Senegal, linked in particular to institutional constraints, a lack of training for actors, competition practices deemed unfair, not to mention the environmental risks linked to groundwater pollution.

The association's secretary general, Pape Sanou Faye, a lecturer and researcher at UIDT, emphasizes that the main difficulty is institutional in nature. He explains that initially, drilling operations were primarily carried out by foreign operators, before national expertise gradually developed. Today, he says, Senegalese professionals possess the necessary technical capabilities to conduct these activities.

However, Pape Sanou Faye notes that the lack of a formal consultation framework prevents stakeholders in the sector from coming together, exchanging information, and defending common interests around the essential issues of the profession. He also highlighted the training gap affecting a large proportion of those working in the sector. He observes that the majority of drillers acquired their skills informally, directly in the field, due to the absence of dedicated training programs.

The association aims, in this context, to contribute to the establishment of a structured training framework to strengthen the technical and professional skills of stakeholders and improve the quality of interventions. Drilling professionals raised another major challenge concerning unfair competition. Pape Sanou Faye and his colleagues denounced the presence of non-Senegalese companies operating in the drilling sector without respecting the applicable regulations, particularly those related to business regulations and the payment of taxes stipulated by law.

They cite the failure to comply with these obligations, which allows these entities to offer very low prices, making competition difficult, if not impossible, for compliant local businesses that normally pay their taxes. They also emphasize that this situation weakens compliant businesses, which are faced with drastically reduced prices that they cannot match without jeopardizing their operations.

Industry professionals are drawing attention to the consequences of poorly executed drilling operations, explaining that certain practices can lead to groundwater contamination, posing a serious risk to water resources. They are calling on stakeholders to improve their organization and adopt responsible practices.