Author: Imara Mbuyi

Presidential Confidence Renews Leadership A presidential decree dated 16 October reconfirmed Maixent Raoul Ominga as Director-General of the Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo for a fresh five-year term, subsequent to the adoption of updated corporate statutes by the Council of Ministers in Oyo on 7 October 2025. The decision, welcomed by observers as a signal of institutional continuity, underscores President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s satisfaction with the progress wp-signup.phped since Ominga first assumed office in February 2018 and his subsequent reconfirmation in March 2022. A Balanced Assessment of Two Terms Facing the Brazzaville press corps on 20 October, Ominga offered…

Strategic conclave in Pointe-Noire fixes new fiscal bar Against the metallic silhouette of Wing Wah Congo’s tower in Pointe-Noire, senior officials and market specialists gathered from 8 to 10 October for the quarterly exercise that anchors the Republic of Congo’s hydrocarbon revenues. Opened by Professor Macaire Batchi, chief-of-staff to the Minister of Hydrocarbons, the session reiterated the State’s commitment to predictable and transparent governance while remaining attentive to international price signals (official communiqué). Market signals underscore cautious optimism Participants first dissected global fundamentals. Over the reference period the dated Brent marker oscillated modestly, opening the third quarter of 2025 at…

A Symbolic Relay at the Helm of the GECF For the second time in a row, an African technocrat has been entrusted with the stewardship of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum. Philip Mshelbila, Managing Director of Nigeria LNG Limited, was unanimously elected Secretary-General during the organisation’s Council of Ministers, succeeding the Algerian diplomat Mohamed Hamel (GECF communiqué, 2024). The relay is more than a ceremonial gesture; it crystallises a continental ambition to convert abundant gas resources into geopolitical leverage while meeting domestic development targets. “With African leadership at the helm of the GECF, we have the opportunity to shape global…

Paradox of Abundance in Kouilou District The southern corridor that runs from Pointe-Noire to the Kouilou lagoon is lined with the sinews of the Congolese hydrocarbons industry: pipelines snake behind mango orchards, a 487-megawatt gas-to-power plant flickers at night, and transmission lines trace the skyline. Yet, in settlements such as Tchicanou and Bondi, the domestic switch remains stubbornly off. Residents like Florent Makosso, sixty-eight, describe the night-time landscape as “permanent twilight,” illumined only by the distant flare that crowns the offshore gas hub. The contrast captures a wider national dilemma. The Republic of Congo produced an average of 344,000 barrels…

Daily life under an intermittent grid With dusk barely settled, whole districts of Brazzaville are sporadically plunged into silence, the luminous skyline replaced by a patchwork of candlelight and the distant hum of diesel generators. Residents recount evenings when refrigerators thaw, fans fall silent and children lean over kerosene lamps to finish their homework. The Congo Electricity Corporation (E²C) has acknowledged aged equipment and overloaded feeders, yet the absence of a detailed timetable for localised repairs has fuelled a perception of randomness. Citizens describe the uncertainty as more unsettling than the darkness itself, fearing crime spikes each time the streetlights…

Cape Town spotlight on a renewed energy vision The opening of the fifth African Energy Week in Cape Town offered the Republic of Congo a rare continental megaphone. Standing in for President Denis Sassou Nguesso, Prime Minister Anatole Collinet Makosso asserted that the theme – “Invest in African Energy: positioning Africa as the global energy champion” – mirrors both the magnitude of the continent’s energy needs and the breadth of its prospects. His intervention sketched an agenda that is as diplomatic as it is entrepreneurial: Brazzaville no longer wants to be catalogued as a mere supplier of crude, but rather…

Ministerial visit heralds a decisive upgrade Standing before the shimmer of newly installed servers on 12 September 2025, Energy and Water Minister Emile Ouosso purposefully signalled that the era of improvisation in the national power utility is fading. His inspection of Énergie Électrique du Congo’s headquarters, preceded by a tightly scripted technical briefing, crystallised government resolve to align the public operator with continental benchmarks. Speaking in the amphitheatre that now houses the company’s digital archive hub, the minister placed the reform in the broader trajectory of President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s development agenda, insisting that reliable electricity undergirds industrial diversification and…

Government sets its sights on universal access to power Meeting diplomats and development financiers in Brazzaville on 5 September, Minister of Energy and Hydraulics Emile Ouosso reiterated the executive’s determination to narrow the rural–urban electricity divide that still characterises the Republic of Congo. According to the ministry’s latest survey, barely one inhabitant in ten living outside major cities enjoys a legal electricity connection, whereas the urban coverage rate stands at roughly sixty-four per cent once informal hook-ups are taken into account. The minister framed these figures as an impediment to industrial expansion, agricultural processing and even cultural tourism, stressing that…

Strategic Importance of the Pointe-Noire–Brazzaville Corridor For four decades the 500-kilometre, 220 kV line threading the Atlantic hub of Pointe-Noire to Brazzaville has formed the backbone of the Republic of Congo’s electricity architecture. Commissioned in 1982, the corridor once embodied the optimism of a young nation determined to bind its commercial capital to its political centre. Time, tropical humidity and rapid urbanisation, however, have exacted a tangible toll. Today more than one-hundred megawatts dissipate between generation at the Centrale électrique du Congo and final delivery to consumers, a shortfall that has constrained both household welfare and industrial output. Against this…

Government strategy to modernise the grid When the Congolese Minister of Energy and Hydraulics, Emile Ouosso, addressed investors in Brazzaville in mid-August, his message was simultaneously candid and reassuring. Decades-old transmission infrastructure, he conceded, lies at the heart of the capital’s electricity deficit; nevertheless, the administration of President Denis Sassou Nguesso has now placed grid rehabilitation at the centre of its broader economic agenda. By framing the electricity question not as a temporary inconvenience but as an essential prerequisite for industrial diversification, the government signalled a diplomatic priority consistent with its commitments under the Central African Power Pool (CAPP 2022).…