In a bid to optimize the country’s gas potential and revitalize its hydrocarbons sector, the Congo has put together and launched, at the end of 2021, a plan to put its estimated 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves to good use. The new Gas Master Plan (GMP) is designed to promote gas utilization and attract foreign direct investment, while reducing its dependency on oil revenues and expanding the country’s power grid.
Developed by the Ministry of Hydrocarbons and Wood Mackenzie, guided by Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo (SNPC), the GMP is a road map to the Congo’s natural gas future both for domestic consumption as well as exports.
For exports in particular, the government sees small-scale Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) as optimal, specifying Eni’s Marine XII field as a prime target for this solution. FLNG however, particularly at a small scale, doesn’t come cheap, and changes to the country’s current fiscal terms will need to be updated for these projects to be viable.
As natural gas takes its rightful place at the center of the Congo’s energy future, the GMP and other strategies will be under the spotlight at the first-ever Congo International Energy Summit (CIES), taking place in Brazzaville on the 15th – 17th of June 2022. The CIES will reunite regional and international government representatives and industry leaders to discuss the future role of natural gas as a regional and continental solution to address energy poverty, among many other issues.
