DRC pulls out of JDZ deal

Democratic Republic of Congo’s new hydrocarbons minister has rejected an agreement on the offshore Joint Development Zone (JDZ) with Angola and demanded compensation after an Angolan presidential decree in December transferred two fields out of the joint zone into Chevron’s Block 14. On 16 February, André Ngoi Mukena Lusa Diese sent a letter to his Angolan counterpart, José Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos, rejecting the two countries’ 30 July 2007 agreement for the exploration and production of hydrocarbons in the JDZ, a 10km-wide corridor across Angolan offshore blocks 1, 14, 15 and 31 (AE 264/17).