Perenco Plans to Place 75% of its $2B Investment in Africa
Perenco recently made public certain details of its investment plan worth USD 2 billion for the next few years. Perenco is a hydrocarbon development company with operations in 14 countries, including four in Africa. As part its strategy, it plans to allocate 75% of its investment budget in Africa.
It was founded by French Hubert Perrodo in 1992. Today, Perrodo remains a family business and Hubert’s son Francois took the helm in 2006. The Perrodo family is known as one of the largest fortunes in France. Former executive of TotalEnergies Armel Simondin was appointed as the new CEO of Perenco in February 2024.
The four Africa countries include Cameroon, Congo Kinshasa, Congo Brazzaville and Gabon, whereby Gabon accounts for 25% of its global production. As part of its investment plan, Perenco will ‘proactively start the exploration of natural gas assets’, which it believes is the ‘transitional energy source’ on the pathway to #NetZero. Today, Perenco’s output of crude oil is just shy of half a million barrels per day (bpd) with a downward trend.
“As part of the transition, gas has a key role to play and that’s a very important part of the strategy going forward … We believe that there is a lot of untapped gas reserve along the coast f Africa that could be targeted with this kind of development.”
Perenco CEO Armel Simondin
One of the flagship projects is the construction of a LNG plant and a network of pipelines across Gabon. The pipeline be able to distribute LNG to various regions in the country in a cost-effective manner. When operational, the LNG plant will have the capacity to output 700,000 tonnes annually.
Perenco’s shift to lower-emissions petroleum products is in line with the global decarbonization trend. The move reflects the company’s commitment to grow while contributing to the #EnergyTransition.
In addition, Perenco plans to use part of the investment t grade its production in Congo field, which Perenco acquired from Eni last year. Furthermore, Perenco is in talks with the Government of Gabon to extend existing licenses while looking out for new hydrocarbon assets.