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Democratic Republic of Congo’s latest national conference has heard a call for a new push to settle the maritime border with Angola and enable the country to take a potential share of the region’s offshore oil. The ‘concertations nationales’ held from 7 September to 5 October in Kinshasa, gathered MPs, senators and civil society organisations to discuss the country’s political and economic future. Kinshasa University geologist Professor Ezequiel Kasongo Numbi Kashemukunda, a former MP of President Joseph Kabila’s Alliance de la Majorité Présidentielle and former diplomat, called on the government to stop wasting time and energy in trying to secure the recognition of its claims over the continental shelf beyond the 200-mile limit.

Rare is the Inga contract that is signed on time, and even rarer is its implementation, but according to officials in Kinshasa, the governments of Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa should finally sign a power purchase agreement (PPA) for the sale of electricity from the future Inga III hydroelectric dam to Eskom when President Jacob Zuma visits Kinshasa in late October. DRC Ministry of Water Resources and Electricity officials announced on 27 September that Kinshasa was about to conclude its much-anticipated PPA with South Africa for the sale of 2,500MW from Inga III. This would allow for construction to start in October 2015. The DRC government anticipates the plant’s inauguration in 2020-21, with Eskom purchasing more than half of Inga III’s projected 4,800MW capacity. Katanga-based mining industries would take 1,300MW, while the rest of the vast country, including Kinshasa, would take the remaining 1,000MW.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has set out its latest policy towards Democratic Republic of Congo in a 2013-17 Country Strategy Paper released on 18 July, which places a heavy emphasis on developing hydroelectric power and other renewables, for domestic and regional consumption. The AfDB said it “continues to play the lead role among the donors for the Inga 3 Project by strengthening co-ordination of [technical and financial partner] TFP contributions and the financing of supplementary studies and major capacity building and advisory needs related to the structuring of the Inga site development in the form of a [public/private partnership] PPP”.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has earmarked €3.65bn ($4.77bn) in loans to be disbursed to Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states between 2014 and 2020, with sub-Saharan Africa a major beneficiary. Speaking to African Energy during the annual visit of ambassadors of ACP partner countries to the Bank’s Luxembourg headquarters, EIB vice-president for sub-Saharan Africa Pim van Ballekom praised recent African growth, saying: “Investing in Africa is good for Africa, of course, but also for European industries.” The €3.65bn includes €1.13bn from the European Commission, under the EIB-managed ACP-EU Investment Facility, for technical assistance programmes or interest rate subsidies. The other €2.5bn will come from the EIB’s own resources.

Germany’s Voith and Spain’s Elecnor signed a contract worth €58m ($77m) with Société Nationale d’Electricité on 24 May to upgrade two turbines at the 351MW Inga I hydroelectric power plant. The consortium, which is 53% owned by Voith and 47% by Elecnor, will replace both generator and turbine sets with new 55MW units. The work, to be funded by the World Bank, is expected to substantially improve the efficiency of the facility.

A new hydrocarbons law should be approved before the end of the current parliamentary session on 15 June, replacing a 1981 presidential decree that previously governed the sector. The law should standardise the bidding process, implementing provisions to ensure transparency and competition and paving the way for licensing rounds for the remaining blocks in Lake Tanganyika and Katanga’s Upemba Basin, as well as for open blocks across the Cuvette Centrale.
Previous allocations of oil blocks have been heavily politicised and, in some cases, licences have been rescinded by presidential decree and reassigned.

The World Bank Group (WBG), African Development Bank (AfDB) and other big donors have fallen in behind the African Union and regional governments who see mega-projects as the key to overcoming sub-Saharan Africa’s alarmingly low levels of energy access. Environmental protests, which did so much to stymie big hydro projects in the last decade, have been drowned out as a range of stakeholders have come to believe that only Grand Inga and other big hydro schemes can allow Africa to overcome its gaping energy deficits. Such is President Jacob Zuma’s enthusiasm to put flesh on the bones of his agreements with President Joseph Kabila that South Africa has been “camping out” in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to secure a leading role in developing the estimated 40GW Grand Inga HEP dam, one close observer of the process said.

The European Commission is to launch a strategic environmental study of the area covered by three oil exploration blocks in the Albertine Rift Basin. The study will assess the best options for sustainable development of the area and help the government to take decisions on whether to authorise oil exploration. The study, to be followed by specific environmental impact studies, will offer cost/benefit and cost/efficiency analyses to help the government decide whether to develop the region’s hydrocarbons potential. The study will cover the Total-operated Block III, the open Block IV and SOCO International’s Block V, all of which include areas of the Virunga National Park.

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) temporarily suspended the Democratic Republic of Congo on 17 April, saying its reports were not up to standard in terms of full disclosure and the reliability of the figures. EITI national co-ordinator Mack Dumba Jeremy has said that tax authorities have failed to account for $88m in revenue from the mining sector.

Democratic Republic of Congo’s hydrocarbons prospects are so attractive that a few companies remain apparently unconcerned about the lack of regulatory structure for the industry or bloody Mai Mai and other insurgencies that might upset their operations. Canada-based Alberta Oilsands and Pan African Oil in January signed a production-sharing agreement to explore Block 5 (Kalembie) and Block 6 (Fatuma) on Lake Tanganyika. Pan African chief executive Gary Wine told African Energy the companies were “basically in a memorandum of understanding stage at the moment”.

The demands of big new mining projects are aggravating DRC’s energy deficit. Confronted with a serious bottleneck to growth, local employers and foreign investors are looking to more sector liberalisation. Their concerns could be met by a new law, which will offer cost-reflective tariffs and other incentives. Also expected in coming months is another big commitment to develop hydropower resources at Inga.

The demands of big new mining projects are aggravating DRC’s energy deficit. Confronted with a serious bottleneck to growth, local employers and foreign investors are looking to more sector liberalisation. Their concerns could be met by a new law, which will offer cost-reflective tariffs and other incentives. Also expected in coming months is another big commitment to develop hydropower resources at Inga

Société Nationale d’Electricité has issued three tenders for the construction of transmission lines and electrification works forming part of an African Development Bank-financed electrification project.

The African Development Bank and the government of Central African Republic signed an agreement on 17 December for a CFA23bn ($47m) grant to finance a project to interconnect the power networks of CAR and Democratic Republic of Congo via the Boali hydro scheme.

The Belgian Chamber of Representatives, the lower house of the Federal Parliament, is expected to vote on a resolution on 6 December urging the government to consider sanctions against Total and SOCO International if they violate a United Nations ban on oil exploration in the Virunga National Park.