Gabon Minister of Petroleum and Hydrocarbons Etienne Dieudonné Ngoubou visited Vienna a day before his country officially rejoins the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on 1 July, 2016.

Ngoubou met with the Acting OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem El-Badri regarding the current oil market situation and the return of Gabon into OPEC, according to a press release from OPEC.

OPEC, Oil & Gas 360

OPEC Secretary General El-Badri

El-Badri said: “We are very happy to welcome back Gabon into the OPEC group of countries.  We look forward to working with the Minister and his colleagues in the coming years.  I am also pleased to see that all the countries that had previously left the Organization have now returned.”

Gabon asked to rejoin the Organization in March this year. This was officially confirmed at the 169th Meeting of the Conference held at the OPEC Secretariat on 2 June, 2016. Gabon originally joined OPEC in 1975, before leaving in 1994.

Gabon

According to data from the EIA:

  • Gabon is a mature oil producer off the coast of West Africa that has been facing declining output for more than a decade. Gabon’s economy is heavily dependent on its oil production. Oil revenue accounted for nearly 56% of total government revenue and hydrocarbon exports accounted for nearly 90% of total export revenue in 2011, according to the International Monetary Fund.
  • Gabon departed OPEC because of high annual fees.
  • Gabon is among the top five oil producers in Sub-Saharan Africa. The country produced around 240,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) of petroleum and other liquids in 2013. Gabon exports a vast majority of its production, mostly to Japan, the United States, Australia, India, and Spain.
  • Mature oil fields, coupled with the lack of major new finds, have caused oil output to decline by more than one-third since its peak of 370,000 bbl/d in 1997. However, the decline rate slowed in recent years, as international oil companies invested in longevity projects at mature fields and brought online moderate levels of new production.
  • Total, the French oil major, and Royal Dutch Shell are the largest oil producers in Gabon. Other significant oil producers include the Paris based-Perenco, the Sinopec-owned Addax Petroleum, and the Houston-based Vaalco Energy.
Gabon Rejoins OPEC - Oil & Gas 360

Gabon

Gabon’s Key Energy Statistics World Rank
Total Primary Energy Production
2013
0.537
Quadrillion Btu
66
Total Primary Energy Consumption
2013
0.065
Quadrillion Btu
137
Crude Oil Proved Reserves
2015
2
Billion Barrels
34
Production of Crude Oil including Lease Condensate
2014
240
Thousand Barrels Per Day
36
Total Petroleum and Other Liquids Production
2014
240
Thousand Barrels Per Day
37

OPEC

OPEC began in Baghdad, Iraq, in September 1960. Founding members were the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. These countries were later joined by Qatar (1961), Indonesia (1962), Libya (1962), the United Arab Emirates (1967), Algeria (1969), Nigeria (1971), Ecuador (1973), Gabon (1975) and Angola (2007).

From December 1992 until October 2007, Ecuador suspended its membership. Gabon terminated its membership in 1995, but will rejoin as of July 1, 2016. Indonesia suspended its membership in January 2009, but this was reactivated from 1st January 2016.

360 OPEC Oil Revenues

Tags: ,

Legal Notice