Energy

Congo’s national oil company officially launches ‘Performance 2025’

Prime Minister Anatole Collinet Makosso receives the SNPC Book on the occasion of the company's 25th Anniversary.

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Congo’s national oil company SNPC organized a gala dinner to celebrate its 25th anniversary and launch its ambitious “Performance 2025” program. The event took place at the Grand Hotel of Kintélé in early May and brought together more than 1,000 people, including SNPC agents, partners, friends and members of the government and Congolese institutions.

The highlight of the evening was the launch of the “Performance 2025” program of the SNPC. Presented by the Director General of the company, Mr. Maixent Raoul Ominga, this project is based on four pillars: increasing income, controlling and optimizing costs, supporting and contributing to the government agenda, and ensuring better governance of the company’s activities.

More generally, Performance 2025 aims at positioning the SNPC as a undisputed leader of the Congolese and African oil industry in the years to come. The Director General clarified that the project seeks to improve the competitiveness of SNPC, emphasizing productivity, quality and operational efficiency.

A highlight of the evening was the delivery of the SNPC book to the Director General by a tribe who presented a choreography and traditional songs. The SNPC book presents the history of hydrocarbons in the Republic of Congo since 1957 and that of the company 25 years ago. It was presented by the Director General to Mr. Bruno Jean Richard Itoua, Minister of Hydrocarbons.

“For the SNPC, this historic moment is an opportunity to take a retrospective look on the road traveled and to have a prospective look at its future,” Maixent Raoul Ominga said during his speech. “It is by associating all the intelligences, energies, know-how and by getting out of our comfort zones that our company will certainly be at the rendez-vous of its ambitions, through its ‘Performance 2025’ program.”

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Nigeria: continued crude theft and workers’ strike bring production to new low

Nigeria produced 37.35 million barrels of crude oil and condensate in April this year, loosing 10 million barrels from its March production levels, according to data from NUPRC. This brought the country’s average daily oil production below the 1 million barrels of oil per day (bopd) threshold, in a country where production capacity stands at over 2 million bopd. Africa’s largest oil producer continues to be hit hard by severe crude theft from onshore assets. These used to represent almost 40% of production before COVID-19, but their share of output fell to only a fourth of the country’s daily oil and condensates volumes last year.   Despite intense efforts from authorities to curb crude theft, results have been limited. “From March 2022 to March 2023, we removed 460 illegal connections on the Trans-Niger Pipeline so we could lift force majeure from our Bonny Terminal,” said Osagie Okunbor, Chairman of the Shell Companies in Nigeria, at the recently concluded Nigeria Energy Summit in Abuja. “However, we are now struggling to catch up our repair programs vis-à-vis new attempts to steal crude oil,” he confessed. So far, Shell’s Bonny Terminal has been able to export only between 2 and 3 million barrels per month in 2023, against traditional monthly volumes of 6 to 8 millions three years ago. But the biggest blow to the country’s production came from a wide strike organized by ExxonMobil workers in April 2023, forcing the American major to declare a Force Majeur at its four terminals in Nigeria. Data from NUPRC shows a loss of 4.6 million barrels at the ExxonMobil terminals between March and April 2023, including at Qua Iboe (-2.3 million barrels), Erha FPSO (-1.3 million barrels), Usan FPSO (-480,000 barrels) and Yoho FSO (-473,000 barrels). ExxonMobil was only able to resume normal operations at the end of April after successful negotiations with the workers. In its most recent report on Nigeria’s upstream industry, Hawilti forecasted a total production of some 1.57 million barrels per day in 2023. The forecast remains heavily dependent on a recovery of onshore volumes by implementing crude theft mitigation measures.

Development partners break ground on new special economic zone in Sierra Leone

ARISE IIP will invest $120m in the development of the SIZ – Koya (Sierra Leone Industrial Zone) as part of a public-private partnership with the Republic of Sierra Leone.