Page 11 - AfrOil Week 11 2021

AfrOil POLICY AfrOil

Mustafa Sanalla, the company’s chairman, was with respect to its arrangements for allocating
quoted as saying in the statement that he was oil revenues among the various regions of the
looking forward to “expanding the capabilities country. This has been a contentious issue in
of the Libyan oil resources” in co-operation with Libya, where many residents of the eastern
the new minister. and southern regions have accused officials in
The statement also noted that this personnel Tripoli of keeping an unfairly large share of oil
decision had been made in line with the cease- revenues in the capital. One high-profile propo-
fire agreement that laid the groundwork for the nent of this view was Khalifa Haftar, the head
formation of a new government. It also pointed of the Libyan National Army (LNA), the main
out that the creation of the ministry would allow opponent of the Tripoli-based and UN-backed
NOC to resume its usual practice of transferring Government of National Accord (GNA).
oil revenues to the Central Bank. Fighting between LNA and GNA brought
The company changed course last year and Libyan oil production down to less than 100,000
began depositing these earnings in the Libyan barrels per day (bpd) last year. Yields recov-
Foreign Bank in Tripoli, indicating that it was ered after the signing of the permanent cease-
reluctant to make direct payments to the gov- fire agreement last October, though, and have
ernment in light of political uncertainty. At remained above 1mn bpd since November.
the time, NOC said it would not revert to the The GNU will be led by Prime Minister
previous pattern until Libya formed a unity Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah and a
government. three-member presidential council. This transi-
Sanalla, for his part, also said last year that he tional regime is due to hold elections on Decem-
wanted the Central Bank to be more transparent ber 24 of this year. ™

DRC launches pilot LPG project

DEM. REP. OF CONGO THE government of the Democratic Republic by offering LPG cooking kits to consumers at
of Congo (DRC) has launched a pilot project reduced prices.
designed to promote the use of LPG as cooking At that time, Nyamugabo said that the gov-
fuel as an alternative to charcoal and wood in ernment would be acquiring LPG for the pro-
order to curb deforestation. gramme from SoGaz, a subsidiary of Société
According to local press reports, the project Congo-Italienne de Raffinage (SOCIR), the par-
calls for Kinshasa to make LPG available to con- tially state-owned entity that owns the country’s
sumers around the country at below-market only refinery. He also put the cost of the pilot
prices. To this end, government officials started distribution campaign at more than €1.8mn
the first phase of distribution in the capital city ($2.15mn). ™
and in the central province of Kongo in early
March. They then initiated the second phase of
distribution on March 6, making LPG available
in Mai Ndombe, Kwango and Kwilu provinces.
The government hopes to expand its distri-
bution efforts to cover all of DRC’s 26 provinces
within the next few months, Minister of Envi-
ronment and Sustainable Development Claude
Nyamugabo said last week. “More than 50,000
gas kits have been distributed among the pop-
ulation, saving 250 hectares of forest annually
by continuously recharging the cylinders sold
and covering about 2.5% of the households con-
cerned,” he stated.
In the long run, Nyamugabo added, shift-
ing from charcoal and wood to LPG will help
preserve the country’s forests. “[For] us, as The
Ministry of the Environment, this project is
about saving our forests in Kinshasa and the
provinces concerned,” he said.
The minister did not specify the extent of
the subsidy or the volume of gas slated for dis-
tribution under the government’s programme.
Kinshasa marked the unveiling of this initiative
last year by handing out bottled gas to a num-
ber of mothers living in the capital city and Kinshasa is promoting LPG as an alternative to wood and charcoal (File Photo)

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