Kouilou

Kouilou Department hosts Pointe-Noire, the Republic of Congo's economic engine and third-largest oil producer in Sub-Saharan Africa at approximately 260,000 barrels per day. This coastal department functions as the nation's extraction and export gateway—a keystone node that mediates between offshore petroleum reserves and global energy markets. The Port of Pointe-Noire is undergoing €400 million expansion by Africa Global Logistics and China Road and Bridge Corporation, adding 750m of deep-water quays at 17m depth by early 2027 to position it as Central Africa's maritime hub. The petroleum infrastructure is vertically integrated: the CORAF refinery processes one million tons of crude annually (70% of national fuel needs), sourcing from the Djeno terminal that handles 95% of Congo's oil production. Eni's Congo LNG project delivered its first cargo in February 2024 from the 3-million-ton-per-year Tango FLNG facility, marking the country's pivot from crude dependency toward natural gas. TotalEnergies' Moho Nord deepwater field produces 140,000 barrels daily, backed by $600 million in fresh 2024 investment. The planned Atlantic Petrochemical Refinery ($600 million, Chinese partnership) and Russia-backed fuel pipeline to Brazzaville signal Kouilou's evolution from raw extraction toward downstream processing. As production declined from 350,000 bpd in 2019, the department demonstrates classic resource depletion dynamics: increasing investment required to maintain output levels.