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Eni has closed the sale of some of its Republic of Congo (RoC) upstream assets to indie Perenco. No specifics of the acreage acquired were detailed. Sale of the assets did not detract from RoC being “at the core” of its strategy, Eni said, but instead reflected a ‘refocus’ on major developments.
An onshore exploration block awarded on 8 February has already generated controversy after campaigning environmental group Greenpeace said Brazzaville’s award of rights in the Conkouati-Douli National Park was a violation of a 1999 presidential decree that forbade oil activity in the area.
A first cargo of liquefied natural gas has left the Litchendjili LNG terminal in Pointe-Noire, following a rapid development by Eni and national oil company SNPC.
The UAE’s latest comprehensive economic partnership agreement has been signed with Brazzaville, in another step forward for Abu Dhabi’s plans to build its global profile by negotiating bilateral trade deals.
The final COP28 communiqué included – for the first time – a commitment to eventually phase out fossil fuels, going beyond previous declarations that focused on coal. However, there are few signs that Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) members and their Opec+ allies, led by Russia, have any intention of allowing their core source of revenues to disappear anytime soon. So what can we learn from recent statements by oil producers – including Opec+’s quota commitments at a meeting on 30 November – and from leaks and comments made during COP28?
UAE-based players have used COP28 to commit – and recommit – to projects that could supply over 12GW of renewables capacity across Africa. Emiratis argue this displays a willingness to push projects forward and shoulder risk, while others have failed to deliver – and if critics complain they are also prominent in the oil lobby, Abu Dhabi can counter that the UAE has assumed a leading role in enabling Africa’s energy transition.
Privately-owned indie Perenco has long been a significant upstream player in west and central Africa and it is now extending its position with new discoveries and plans to increase production in Chad, Republic of Congo and elsewhere, as its general manager Benoît de la Fouchardiere tells African Energy.
Oslo Børs-listed PetroNor E&P’s has announced an update of its Republic of Congo operations, which focus on the PNGF Sud field complex, where Q3 23 net to PetroNor production was 5,118 b/d, compared up from 4,130 b/d in Q3 22.
Cairo-headquartered African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) announced on 2 October it had extended a $300m loan to Trident OGX Congo.
Most big oil companies reported a sharp falls in profits in Q2 2023, but Africa still figures prominently in results and future plans – and where it doesn’t majors are able to divest at least some of their more attractive assets.
Brazzaville has accelerated its long-mooted policy of offering public/private partnership (PPP) concessions to run infrastructure, with deals agreed for international companies to run the Moukoukoulou, Imboulou, Liouosso and Djoué hydroelectric power (HEP) dams and other facilities, including major highway Route Nationale 1.
Perenco has boosted oil output by 4,500 b/d at its offshore Boatou acreage in Republic of Congo. The Paris-based independent said it brought four offshore wells online between March and May.
Amid a waning consensus over strategy, the Opec+ meeting in early June broke up with African members unhappy at an unwelcome squeeze on their future production while Saudi Arabia made a unilateral output cut of 1m b/d, reflecting Riyadh’s determination to shape market forces, writes Jon Marks.
Northern Ireland- and Aberdeen-based Decom Engineering said its specialist cutting technology had been deployed on an offshore Republic of Congo decommissioning project for TotalEnergies.
Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo is looking to arrest the decline in its maturing crude oil acreage, which threatens Republic of Congo’s main source of income, but the national oil company’s biggest priority is to build up its natural gas resources, managing director Maixent Raoul Ominga told James Gavin.
