Olive Energy boss Ahmed Ouenes reinforces ties with Ominga and SNPC

摘要

Frenchman Ahmed Ouenes, head of American oil industry service company Olive Energy, is continuing to develop his business interests in the Republic of the Congo. According to our information, he has just signed a new service contract with the cash-strapped state-owned SNPC. Olive Energy is due to drill five new wells on the Mengo-Kundji-Bindi II (MKB) block. The firm is used to working with SNPC headed by Raoul Ominga. It has already drilled five wells for the company on the same block, mainly on the Kundji field which is already in production. SNPC is operator on the field with Orion Oil, a company owned by Congolese businessman, Lucien Ebata (Africa Energy Intelligence, 11/06/2019). Olive Energy is partners on Congo's MBK field with American consulting company FracGeo, which is also headed by Ouenes. Until now, FracGeo had been mainly active in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2016, the company was awarded a contract by state-owned Sonahydroc for the reinterpretation of seismic data from the Nganzi block in Kongo-Central, which used to be operated by Soco. The cost of the reinterpretation became a real bone of contention, with Sonahydroc and the Congolese oil minister on one side and the prime minister's office on the other. Samy Badibanga, who was prime minister at the time, came out directly against paying FracGeo the $400,000 owed on the contract (Africa Energy Intelligence, 29/08/2017). When contacted by Africa Intelligence, Ahmed Ouenes claimed that FracGeo had never had any unpaid bills.