Congo Cancels Oil and Gas Licensing Round, Plans to Relaunch Bid

By Michael J. Kavanagh

October 14, 2024 at 8:27AM EDT

Perenco oil company managers and technicians watch one of the onshore oil wells in operation on the outskirts of Muanda, on the southwestern tip of the Democratic Republic of Congo on October 19, 2021. - The Franco-British company Perenco operates nearly 400 oil wells onshore and offshore along the 40-kilometer Atlantic coast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the country's only oil producing area. The pipeline that transports onshore oil to offshore tankers runs for two kilometers through the fragile Mangrove Marine Park Reserve, a nesting area for sea turtles. The Virunga National Park, in northeastern DRC, was able in 2014 to stop a project by the British oil company SOCO that planned to exploit oil within the park's boundaries. (Photo by ALEXIS HUGUET / AFP) (Photo by ALEXIS HUGUET/AFP via Getty Images) (ALEXIS HUGUET/Photographer: ALEXIS HUGUET/AFP)

(Bloomberg) -- Democratic Republic of Congo canceled a call for bids for 27 oil blocks that it issued more than two years ago, according to Oil Minister Aime Sakombi Molendo.

The ministry called off the process due to “a lack of applications, inadmissible offers, late submissions, inappropriate or irregular offers and a lack of competition,” according to a statement. The ministry will soon announce a new round, it said.

Congo began its bid process in 2022 for 30 licenses, including three gas permits, to enlarge its hydrocarbons industry, which produces about 25,000 barrels per day through an old project run by Perenco SA.

The bid round attracted criticism from some environmental groups and western governments because some of the blocks overlapped with fragile rainforests and peatlands.