KEY POINTS
- Gabon expects production-sharing contracts with BP and ExxonMobil signed within four to six months.
- Both companies previously signed non-binding agreements to study Gabon’s Atlantic coastline prospects.
- Exxon declined to comment and BP did not respond to the minister’s contract timeline.
Gabon is pushing its offshore exploration plans into a new phase. The government expects to sign formal production-sharing contracts with BP and ExxonMobil within the next four to six months, Oil and Gas Minister Clotaire Kondja said.
Kondja spoke at an African energy conference in Paris on Wednesday. He said negotiations with both oil majors are progressing after earlier preliminary agreements.
“We expect to sign contracts in the next four to six months,” Kondja said.
From non-binding to binding
Both BP and ExxonMobil signed non-binding agreements with the Gabonese government earlier. Those initial arrangements gave the companies access to geological data and room to assess prospects before any full exploration commitment.
The planned production-sharing contracts would move that early engagement into a concrete operational framework. It is the step that matters for investors, because a signed PSC is the point at which a company formally commits capital, timelines and rig programs to a country.
Production-sharing contracts also set the terms that will govern how any eventual discoveries are shared between the companies and the state. Gabon’s fiscal terms, cost recovery rules and profit oil splits will all be defined inside those documents.
ExxonMobil declined to comment on the minister’s timeline. BP did not immediately respond to Reuters when contacted for comment.
What Gabon is betting on
Gabon’s Atlantic coastline is the geological prize at the center of the push. The region sits within a broader African Atlantic margin that has delivered significant discoveries in Angola, Namibia, Senegal and Mauritania over the past decade. Operators have been looking for the next frontier, and Gabon has been actively positioning itself as part of that conversation.
The country currently produces around 200,000 barrels of oil per day, well below its historical peak. Onshore fields are mature, and offshore exploration is widely seen as the clearest path to rebuilding reserves and production.
Bringing BP and ExxonMobil in at the same time would also give Gabon something else it needs: scale. Two supermajors operating offshore at the same time signals technical credibility to the wider investor community and could help attract additional operators who have been waiting on the sidelines.
Whether the four-to-six-month timeline holds is another matter. PSC negotiations often run longer than the political timelines announced around them. The signing, when it happens, will be the real milestone.
