In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the government is opening 27 of its oil blocks to investors despite warnings from local and international NGOs. These wanted to ensure that no less than nine oil blocks to be auctioned at the end of this month overlap protected areas.
Initially, 16 blocks were expected to be auctioned, but the government added 11 more. In early May, the Minister announced a plan to offer 16 blocks for oil exploration only, estimated to hold approximately 16 billion barrels in reserve with the potential to inject over $650 billion in revenue for the DRC's government.
Kinshasa does not deny the overlaps. Didier Budimbu, the Congolese Minister of Hydrocarbons, announced the call for tenders. He reassured: "It is true that it overlaps a little bit in certain parks. However, there are techniques to drill without consequences to the ecosystem."
also tackled the topic of economic interest for the country, especially amid the Ukrainian crisis: "With all these 27 blocks, we are close to 2000 billion (Congolese francs) in terms of income, so it's huge for our country and thanks to oil, this country can develop. With the Ukrainian crisis ongoing, the Congo also has the right to benefit from its resources. So these 27 oil and three gas blocks will be put out to tender. We will develop the sector, we have a certain attractiveness from a tax point of view, legal certainty, so the investors assigned these blocks can really evolve in peace and benefit. "
DRC, with a population of 92M people, currently produces about 25,000 barrels a day of crude oil from a small number of onshore and offshore blocks along its Atlantic coast.
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