Gabon plans to resume exploration of new oil and gas reserves to enhance its economic growth, the oil and gas minister of the African nation stated on Tuesday.
The oil sector serves as the main economic foundation for this small Central African country, but production has declined significantly over the last three decades, decreasing from a peak of 500,000 barrels in the late 1990s to 230,000 barrels per day in 2024, according to government statistics.
“Today, Gabon is resolutely determined to revive and boost its economic development, and this requires a new energy policy, including oil and gas production,” Sosthene Nguema Nguema, Gabon’s oil and gas minister, said on Tuesday on a visit to Cape Town in South Africa.
This decline can be attributed to the depletion of ageing oil fields and the absence of newly discovered reserves in the country that borders the Atlantic Ocean.
He mentioned that a memorandum of understanding for exploration is expected to be finalised “before October 15” with ExxonMobil from the US, while TotalEnergies from France has also shown interest.
Currently, existing fields account for only around 27.5 per cent of the nation’s total oil reserves, according to him.
The government aims to conduct exploration activities to determine the exact amount of oil available in the remaining areas.
It anticipates that these efforts will lead to new oil fields becoming operational “within two to three years,” he added.
