Kinshasa and Luanda Push Shared Oil Zone and Fuel Deal
DR CONGO · ENERGY
Key Facts
—The meeting: President Félix Tshisekedi received President João Lourenço at the Cité de l’Union Africaine in Kinshasa on Wednesday 26 August.
—The zone: Both agreed to give new political impetus to bringing the Zone Maritime d’Intérêt Commun, the joint offshore area, into operation.
—The split: Bonuses, taxes, levies and penalties from production in the zone are to be shared equally between the two states. The framework centres on Block 14/23, off the two countries’ shared border.
—The paperwork: Kinshasa says the legal instruments are ratified and published, joint bodies are in place, and an amendment to the production sharing contract was signed in Luanda on 22 July.
—The prize: The Congolese government puts potential revenue for the DRC at up to US$2.78 billion. That is an official projection, not a reserve estimate.
—The fuel: The two also agreed to accelerate arrangements for Angola’s state oil company Sonangol to supply more fuel to the Democratic Republic of Congo. No volumes were published.
—Same day, same corridor: The presidents watched the signing of a 30-year, US$1.258 billion rail concession with Mota-Engil for the 1,004.5 km Dilolo–Sakania line on the Lobito corridor.
Presidents Félix Tshisekedi and João Lourenço met in Kinshasa on 26 August and agreed to push their shared offshore oil zone into operation and to get Angola’s Sonangol supplying more fuel to the Democratic Republic of Congo. No production volumes, reserve figures or timetable were announced.
What the two presidents agreed
Lourenço flew into Kinshasa on the morning of Wednesday 26 August for a working visit. He and Tshisekedi met first in private at the Cité de l’Union Africaine, then with their delegations.
The account comes from the Congolese presidency and was carried by state media and outlets including Actu30.cd. Three energy decisions came out of it.
The first is a new political impetus to operationalise the Zone Maritime d’Intérêt Commun, the joint maritime zone of common interest. That is an area of overlapping offshore claims the two states agreed to develop together rather than contest.
The second is to accelerate the finalisation of arrangements for Sonangol, Angola’s state oil company, to increase fuel supplies to the DRC. The third is to speed up electricity interconnections, with priority for Grand Katanga.
The paperwork, as Kinshasa tells it
Twelve days before the presidential meeting, Hydrocarbons Minister of State Acacia Bandubola told the cabinet the zone’s legal instruments had been ratified and published in the official journal. She said joint governance bodies had been established and an amendment to the production sharing contract signed.
That amendment was signed in Luanda on 22 July. It covers Block 14/23, the block at the heart of the zone, and is meant to clear the administrative, legal and financial path toward exploration.
Revenue from production, covering bonuses, taxes, levies and penalties, is to be split 50-50 between the two states. Kinshasa’s public estimate of what that could be worth to the DRC is up to US$2.78 billion over the life of the project.
Those figures are the government’s own projections. They reach us through a cabinet readout rather than any published contract text, and no company has confirmed them.
A zone two decades in the making
The file is older than most of the people negotiating it. The two countries signed their first memorandum on joint offshore development in 2003, followed by a cooperation protocol in 2008.
After years of inactivity, and a period when the maritime boundary itself was disputed, they re-engaged in 2020. That produced a full cooperation agreement signed in Kinshasa in July 2023 by the two petroleum ministers.
The zone sits between Angola’s producing offshore blocks and the DRC’s narrow coastline. The 2023 framework envisaged a production sharing contract with the Block 14 contractor group, which is led by Chevron.
Kinshasa reopened the file again this month, when its cabinet endorsed the operational framework on 14 August. What would distinguish this round from earlier ones is a drilling programme, and none has been published.
Fuel and power are the more immediate business
Congo imports almost all its refined fuel, and supply has been unreliable for years. A Sonangol supply arrangement is a more concrete proposition than an offshore zone that has yet to see a drill bit.
No volumes, routes or start date have been published. What exists is a commitment by both presidents to finalise the arrangements quickly.
Tshisekedi separately called for identified electricity interconnections to be accelerated, prioritising Grand Katanga. Sufficient energy, he said, is the essential condition for Congo’s mining, agricultural, industrial and railway ambitions.
Katanga is where the copper and cobalt are, and power is the binding constraint on processing them at home. Angola has surplus hydroelectric capacity and Congo has demand it cannot meet.
The corridor is the real story
The same visit produced the signing of the Dilolo–Sakania rail concession with Portugal’s Mota-Engil. The 1,004.5 km line links Kolwezi, Tenke and Lubumbashi to the Angolan network and on to the Atlantic port of Lobito.
The 30-year concession carries an indicative investment of US$1.258 billion. The DRC keeps at least 10 percent of the project company and a royalty of 7.5 percent of gross annual revenue, with no sovereign guarantee, and the state railway SNCC keeps exclusive passenger rights.
Add the oil zone, the fuel arrangement and the power lines, and the week’s four announcements are one project. It is to move Congolese minerals west to the Atlantic through Angola, with the energy to process them on the way.
“Our ambition is not to build a simple corridor for evacuating raw materials,” Tshisekedi said. “We want to build a corridor of production, transformation and value creation.”
For an investor the question is which of the four actually gets built. Railways and power lines have contracts and contractors, while offshore zones have communiqués. These are political commitments, not executed transactions, and they should be judged on delivery.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Congo Angola joint maritime zone?
It is an area of overlapping offshore claims the two states agreed to develop jointly rather than contest, centred on Block 14/23. The framework dates from a 2003 memorandum and a 2023 cooperation agreement, with revenue from production split equally.
What did the two presidents agree on 26 August?
They agreed to give new political impetus to bringing the zone into operation, to finalise arrangements for Sonangol to supply more fuel to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and to accelerate electricity interconnections toward Grand Katanga.
How much oil is involved?
No production volume, reserve estimate or timetable has been published. Kinshasa projects up to US$2.78 billion in revenue for the DRC over the project’s life, and the 50 percent split refers to revenue rather than barrels.
Why does Katanga come up?
Tshisekedi asked for power interconnections to be prioritised for Grand Katanga, where the copper and cobalt industry is concentrated. Electricity is the binding constraint on processing minerals locally instead of exporting them raw.
Connected Coverage
Kinshasa reopened this file only weeks ago, in its order for a full review of the shared zone, and the same corridor logic drove the Lobito rail concession signed with Mota-Engil. The contest behind it is set out in Africa: The New Scramble, with more on our Central Africa hub.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error
LatAm Markets: Live Signals → — real-time movers, turnover leaders and FX across Latin America.
Read More from The Rio Times