It’s not easy to hide a French man in the (formerly Belgian) Democratic Republic of Congo. At least that has been the recent experience of Total, the French oil company.
Phillippe Hergaux, who is in charge of Total’s new ventures in that part of the world, was tracked down by local television crews and then by Reuters.
“What are you doing here, pray tell?” was the thrust of the questions.
It turns out Hergaux was scouting out new oil fields on the Democratic Republic of Congo’s side of Lake Alberta, where Total has just formed a partnership with UK-lised Tullow Oil and Cnooc, the Chinese state oil company.
Here is what he had to say (to Reuters) once he was back in Paris:
“The idea is to partner with Tullow, just as we are in Uganda.”
He said Congo was three years behind Uganda, on whose side of Lake Albert several successful wells have already been drilled by Tullow and Heritage Oil, the UK-listed oil company that sold its blocks recenty, allowing Total and Cnooc to entre.
So far Total is just scouting out the DRC, which has already begun to sell licenses to its blocks.
It is no big surprise Total is doing this. Eni, the Italian oil company, did the same when it thought it was in the running to buy Heritage’s Ugandan blocks. Tullow also has blocks there.
Lake Albert will not be easy to develop and the cost of transportation the oil to the nearest port in Tanzania or Kenya will be sizeable. Thus the current production targets of a few hundred thousand barrels of oil aren’t what it is all about.
As Paolo Scaroni, Eni’s chief executive, told the FT, Lake Albert is interesting for its potential, a big part of which – for better or worse – lies across the Ugandan border in Congo.
Related links:
Being rich in resources really is a curse (FT Energy Source)
Cnooc popping up across Africa (FT Energy Source)
