Civil Society Declaration Against Hydrocarbon Exploitation in the DRC

Following sustained efforts by Civil Society organizations, both national and international, against the oil and gas bidding process launched on July 28, 2022, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), we welcome the October 11, 2024, decision by the Minister of Hydrocarbons to partially cancel this call for tenders. This initial auction aimed to allocate 27 oil blocks and 3 gas blocks in areas overlapping local communities’ and Indigenous peoples’ territories, as well as several protected areas. According to the ministry, the cancellation was motivated by multiple issues with the bids, including a lack of applicants for certain blocks, inadmissible bids, late submissions, inappropriate or irregular proposals, and a lack of competition.

These problems are not new to Civil Society, which has been denouncing these irregularities since the beginning of the process. The bidding process never took into account the opinions or well-being of the affected communities, let alone the development promises made to the Congolese people. Since its launch, the tender has exposed serious transparency issues and violations of existing laws, endangering local populations, fragile ecosystems, unparalleled biodiversity, and the country’s economy. The bidding process has already placed the country at economic risk due to numerous irregularities committed from the outset and throughout its execution. For instance, 11 of the 27 auctioned blocks were never approved by the Council of Ministers, in violation of the Hydrocarbons Law, and 13 blocks were located in protected areas, contradicting environmental regulations. These failures present a risk of lawsuits from multinational corporations that could demand compensation from the Congolese state. In 2018, the DRC was already ordered to pay over $600 million to the South African company Dig Oil due to irregularities related to oil blocks in the Albertine Graben and the Central Cuvette region.

This declaration aims to commend the partial cancellation of the tender while reaffirming our opposition to any oil and gas exploitation in the DRC. Such exploitation would have disastrous consequences on the lives of Congolese people, food security, biodiversity conservation, land rights, rural fishing livelihoods, and the fight against climate change. It would also violate national laws and the commitments made by the DRC. For all these reasons, our campaign, Our Land Without Oil, calls for the complete abandonment of any future plans to grant new hydrocarbon exploitation rights and the cancellation of the two Production Sharing Contracts already signed for the gas blocks.

Two of the three gas blocks included in the 2022 bidding process were awarded through Production Sharing Contracts in violation of multiple provisions of the Hydrocarbons Law. This is the case for Alfajiri, for example, a Canadian company with Congolese leadership. Created on January 10, 2022—just weeks after the government announced its intention to auction oil blocks—it was unable to provide the legally required financial statements for the past three years. As for Winds Exploration and Production, a young American company founded in 2018 that currently operates about thirty gas wells in the United States, it plans to invest $500 million in the Idjwi block despite having an annual revenue of less than $5 million, according to multiple economic analysis websites. Furthermore, at the time of signing the PSC with the company, the State of Texas had revoked its business certificate for alleged non-payment of franchise tax, making it legally inactive and unable to conduct commercial activities in its home state. The American company Symbion Power is reportedly in negotiations to acquire the third gas block. According to our sources within the Ministry of Hydrocarbons, it is demanding a concession contract, which would violate Congolese legislation.

Moreover, the awarding of gas Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) was done without any prior consultation with the surrounding communities, violating Article 9 of the Law on Fundamental Principles for Environmental Protection, which states: "Everyone has the right to participate in the decision-making process regarding the environment and natural resource management."
With the cancellation of the oil block bidding process, the Minister simultaneously announced that a new process would soon be launched, this time through a restricted call for tenders. This announcement has raised serious concerns among Civil Society. Such an approach would increase the risk of future accusations of corruption and favoritism. Our concerns are even greater in light of recent revelations implicating the Congolese Ministry of Hydrocarbons, which allegedly promised this restricted process for certain blocks to the company ClayHall Group DMCC in exchange for funding a study on the country’s sedimentary basins.

As part of the construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), led by TotalEnergies, CNOOC, and the governments of Uganda and Tanzania, the Congolese government has expressed its desire to connect to it. This 1,443 km pipeline is designed to transport extracted oil—including from within Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park—from the shores of Lake Albert to the port of Tanga in Tanzania. The project raises serious concerns due to its impacts, such as the displacement of over 100,000 people and the direct threat to numerous fragile and transboundary ecosystems shared with the DRC. The planned connection by Congolese authorities also presents a significant risk for the tens of thousands of people who depend directly or indirectly on Lake Albert’s resources, particularly due to pollution risks linked to oil exploitation. Organizations have also warned that hydrocarbon exploitation could exacerbate ongoing armed conflicts in these regions.

The experience of oil exploitation in Muanda, in western DRC, has shown that it brings no economic development to the region or the country. Instead, it causes severe environmental degradation to local communities and significant pollution of the area. Rather than focusing on a declining fossil fuel industry, the Congolese government and its partners should focus on strengthening the country’s economy through sustainable development that delivers tangible and concrete benefits to the Congolese people. It is possible to build a regenerative economy based on alternative development models that respect community rights, the environment, and biodiversity while creating local jobs. The electrification and local development projects of the Virunga Alliance in North Kivu province serve as an example. Such an approach would enable the DRC to fully play its role as a "Solution Country" in the fight against climate change, rather than exacerbating it.

Given the risks of environmental degradation in our country and the effects of climate change, which already make the DRC one of the most severely affected countries, we reiterate our call for the complete cancellation of all hydrocarbon exploration projects, including gas blocks, and urge the abandonment of any new initiatives in this sector.