Republic of Congo: oil royalties and production sharing

The 2016 Hydrocarbons Code

Law No. 28-2016 of 12 October 2016 on the Hydrocarbons Code was published in the Journal Officiel special edition No. 8 of 13 October 2016 ¹. The French Treasury says the revised code has been in force since October 2016 ⁴.

Article 10 says a petroleum contract must take the form of a production sharing contract or a service contract. Articles 16 and 17 define each type ¹.

Article 23 gives the national company a mandatory, non-transferable interest of at least 15% in every production sharing contract ¹. Article 143 says Congolese private companies must hold at least 15% of a petroleum contract, or 25% when continuing an expired exploitation permit ¹.

Article 98 funds a national environmental risk fund with a contribution of 0.05% of net production, valued at the fiscal price ¹.

Royalty

Article 73 assigns a share of net production to the proportional mining royalty ¹. A May 2024 research presentation by Yannick Bouterige of Ferdi and Bertrand Laporte of Cerdi, citing Articles 158 to 160 of the code, gives the rates below ⁵.

In 2023 the State took 13,967.82 thousand barrels of royalty oil in kind, according to the 2023 EITI report ².

Cost oil, profit oil and company tax

Article 74 caps cost oil at 50% of net production. A higher rate of up to 70% may be allowed in specified cases for a limited period ¹. Article 78 says the State's share of profit oil in a calendar year may not fall below 35% ¹.

The Ferdi and Cerdi presentation says the profit oil split replaces company tax under production sharing contracts, citing Article 172. It gives a company tax rate of 28% under service contracts ⁵.

The 2023 EITI report breaks down the State's share of production as follows ².

SNPC and the State's crude

SNPC is wholly owned by the State. It sells the State's share of production under production sharing contracts and owns the CORAF refinery, according to the French Treasury ⁴.

In 2023 SNPC transferred 669.09 billion FCFA to the Treasury under its mandate. Total State crude sales put 670.68 billion FCFA into the Treasury that year ².

In 2020 SNPC sold 21,511,663 barrels of State crude worth US$843,464,010. Its commission was 344,187 barrels, worth US$11,716,615 ⁶.

The EITI country page says resource-backed loans from China and commodity traders have been added to government budget and debt reporting. It notes that some civil society groups and development partners question whether SNPC records these loans in its own accounts ³.

Congo EITI figures for 2023

The Republic of Congo 2023 EITI report was prepared by Enerteam as Independent Administrator. Karim Lourimi signed its letter on 30 December 2025 ². Crude production was 95,356,293 barrels ². Gross extractive budget revenue was 1,500.80 billion FCFA and net extractive budget revenue was 925.35 billion FCFA ².

The report puts the reconciliation gap at 15.42 billion FCFA, or 1.74% of revenue declared by the State, below the 2% threshold set by the national EITI committee ².

Congo scored 70.5 points, rated Moderate, in Validation under the 2019 EITI Standard on 1 March 2023 ³. Citing the 2023 report, the EITI page says the extractive sector made up 66.41% of government revenue and 72.42% of exports ³.