Press Release, for immediate release.
June 25, 2025
New mapping analysis exposes expanded oil plans in the DRC, endangering ecosystems and communities
Despite widespread opposition, the Democratic Republic of Congo signed off on a new licensing round for 55 oil blocks covering 124 million hectares
June 25, 2025 (Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo) — New mapping analysis reveals newly approved tenders for oil exploration in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), posing major threats to forests and protected areas that are critical to the health of communities and the planet.
Despite widespread local and international opposition, the DRC has launched a new licensing round for 52 (in addition to 3 exploration blocks) oil blocks covering a staggering 124 million hectares, representing a significant and troubling expansion from the 2022 tender. Analysis from Earth Insight reveals that these new oil blocks pose a threat to 64 per cent of intact forests, 23 per cent of protected areas, 23 per cent of Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs), overlap with the Cuvette Centrale – a region of forests and wetlands in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and directly affect nearly 39 million people. Among these blocks, 28 also overlap with 72 per cent of the Kivu to Kinshasa Green Corridor Reserve.
View maps here (in English and French), a more extensive report is to come late July.
"The DRC is endowed with priceless resources: hydroelectric power capable of making us the leader in clean energy in Africa; fertile farmland that can feed an entire region; biodiversity that exists nowhere else in the world,” said Pascal Mirindi, Campaign Coordinator, Notre Terre Sans Pétrole. “Tapping into these assets in a sustainable way could create jobs, support resilient agriculture and build a development model for all of Africa. We have a choice: continue to dig our grave with oil or build a livable, dignified and sovereign future."
Commonly referred to as “Africa’s lungs,” the Congo Basin is the world’s largest carbon sink. Despite the global significance of landscapes across the DRC, the country has faced escalating threats from oil and gas extraction in recent years. In July 2022, the DRC government launched tenders for 27 oil and 3 gas blocks, covering vast areas of land across the country, including in highly sensitive primary forests. This move faced strong resistance from Congolese civil society, local communities, and environmental organizations. Local and regional opposition has emphasized the devastating impacts oil and gas development would have on biodiversity, communities, land rights, and the global fight against climate change.
Civil society in the DRC continues to mobilize to stop the expansion of oil and gas in the country, coordinating international actions this week targeting DRC government institutions as well as multinational corporations such as PERENCO, TRAFIGURA and TOTALENERGIES / EACOP. A recent campaign called Our Land Without Oil has also emerged from a civil society coalition who issued a declaration last October that called for these oil concessions to be permanently removed and not re-auctioned.
“From the Congo’s Green Corridor project to its protected areas, forests and communities, these maps clearly show that critical landscapes are in the crosshairs of extractive expansion,” said Anna Bebbington, Senior Spatial Analyst, Earth Insight. “The government’s decision to auction off these fossil fuel concessions within the Corridor threatens the international reputation of the project and undermines its commitments to biodiversity and climate action.”
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Press and Media Contact:
Ziona Eyob, Communications Advisor, (Pacific Time) press@earth-insight.org
About Earth Insight
Earth Insight builds critical transparency tools and momentum for restricting fossil fuel, mining, and other industrial expansion threats to key ecosystems and Indigenous and local communities. Our research, communications, and engagement work is central to supporting policy interventions that key political and financial actors can make to protect critical ecosystems as a vital step towards addressing both the biodiversity and climate crises.