The Republic of Congo is again in the news but this time, it is not about civil unrest but some significant oil and gas discovery and substantial government effort to promote the participation of Congolese companies in the industry. In Nigeria, indigenous players struggle to raise funds in the form of debt to finance projects.
The Oyo discovery in Congo is the result of indigenous efforts made by Congolese companies. This speaks to the value that local content development can create when local companies and entrepreneurs are given an opportunity to contribute to their industry. Mohamed Rahmani, marketing director of SARPDOIL, the company producing the new field, developed in la Cuvette region, said this is a major development for the company.
“This is our first onshore discovery and it gives us a lot of hope that we shall make more discoveries especially now that we are to award more blocks for oil exploration in the ongoing oil licensing round,” said Jean-marc ThystèreTchicaya, minister of Hydrocarbons of the Republic of Congo.
The African Energy Chamber looks forward to seeing the full development of the license creating jobs for Congolese, and opportunities for Congolese companies and entrepreneurs to service one of Central Africa’s largest upcoming onshore developments. Such discovery has the potential to spur considerable economic growth for Congo and its central and Northern provinces, especially as the country keeps recovering from a recent economic crisis due to plummeting oil prices.
Nigeria’s story is different. Smaller indigenous oil and gas companies face significant financial challenges trying to get oil and gas programmes off the drawing board.
Nigeria needs over $20bn in new financing to ramp crude oil production to 2.5million barrels per day (bpd). It hovers around 1.80 million barrels per day currently. But with local banks exhibiting a low appetite for lending to the sector due to high non-performing loans (NPL) estimated last year to constitute about 40 percent of banks NPLS, local players say they are being forced to task their brains for new solutions.
