A call for tenders of twenty-seven petroleum permits and three gas blocks was launched on Thursday. Associations denounce a “climate disaster” if these projects are materialized.
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“Investing in the DRC is to propel the country among the major producers of oil and gas”, promises the advertising. Thursday, July 28, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) officially launched its new development project: opening the country of the country to hydrocarbon producers, by offering twenty-seven petroleum permits and three gas permits to calls for Offers. A major turning point for the country, whose economic activity was hitherto turned towards the exploitation of mining resources. A nightmare for environmental defense organizations, which denounce the provision of permit in environmental areas among the most sensitive on the planet.
The DRC wishes to diversify its economy by relying, in particular, in the petroleum sector since 2015. Surrounded by major oil producing countries such as Angola or the Republic of Congo, the DRC produces barely 23,000 barrels of oil oil By day, a straw with regard to its estimated potential. “It was time to pull us out,” said President, Félix Tshisekedi, during the launch of tenders. Stimulated by the rise in oil prices on the background of racing energy supplies in the context of the war in Ukraine, the authorities first announced the provision of sixteen blocks in May, before double the situation, mid-July .
The government estimates the country’s resources at 22 billion barrels of oil and 66 billion cubic meters of gas in Lake Kivu, Rwanda border. Ambitious figures which “are not worth much” at this stage, for lack of sufficient exploration, nuance Francis Perrin, director of research at IRIS and specialist in energy issues. “Maybe they are true. Maybe they are underestimated. Maybe they are overestimated. Anything is possible,” he said. The Congolese government is also careful not to speak of “reservations”, evoking “resources”, a more vague term.
a year of emissions from co 2
The project is strongly criticized by environmental defense organizations. Greenpeace, in particular, denounces the opening to the exploration of areas located in the very sensitive peat bogs of the Congolese central bowl, the most important in the world. Thirty billion tonnes of carbon dioxide would be trapped there, the equivalent of a year of planetary emissions of co 2 . “Peat bogs are a carbon bomb. If this project materializes, we will observe a climate disaster and we will be unable to do anything,” warns Irène Wabiwa Betoko, campaign for the forests of the basin of Congo within Greenpeace Africa.
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