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Italian energy company ENI will invest $3 billion in the Republic of the Congo to develop oil-tar sand fields, media reported May 20. While Congo could see its oil output double as a result of the investment, it could also finance a move by Brazzaville to distance itself from Angolan hegemony. Luanda would likely intervene to keep that from happening.
Congo is a relatively small oil producer in Africa’s oil-rich Gulf of Guinea region. Its output of 238,000 barrels per day (bpd) places it far behind Nigeria and Angola, Africa’s leading producers, each of whom have an output of some 1.9 million bpd. The ENI investment in the tar sand fields at Tchikatanga and Tchikatanga-Makolas, located onshore some 40 miles from the port city of Pointe-Noire, could add another 200,000 bpd to that output. The Congo sand fields — the first tar-sands projects in Africa — contain recoverable reserves estimated to be from 500 million barrels to as much as 2.5 billion barrels.
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