After the news that Bruno Jean Richard Itoua has now been appointed minister for hydrocarbons Zenith are now more than half way through the list of requirements that we need to happen in order to be granted the Tilapia license. With the minister now in place then we can finally begin negotiating with the ministry to get the Production Sharing Agreement sorted out.

The big difference for Zenith now as opposed to prior to the election is that the Bruno Jean Richard Itoua (BJRI) has just been appointed by President Denis Sassou Nguesso (DSN) and therefore owes his loyalty to him. The previous minister Jean-Marc Thystere-Tchicaya (JMTT) was only put in the position as the price for his political support of DSN in the previous election.


For those who do not know, this is how JMTT came to be appointed minister for hydrocarbons back in February 2106:

Jean-Marc Thystère-Tchicaya (JMTT) is the President of the Rally for Democracy and Social Progress (RDPS) party in Congo which was created by his father, Jean-Pierre Thystère-Tchicaya (JPTT), in 1990.In 2015 RDPS was the third biggest party in the majority government with around 30 elected representatives (senators, deputies and advisers combined).

In May 2015 the party had a congress to elect a new leader where the only candidate standing was JMTT. At the same Congress it also announced that it would participate in the 2016 presidential elections with it’s own candidate. At the same time the outgoing RDPS leader publicly announced that the alliance between the RDPS and the President did not benefit the RDPS because none of its members were ever appointed minister, prefect or director general.

It was a fairly unsubtle act of political blackmail but it worked. In August 2015 JMTT was appointed Minister for Hydrocarbons and in February 2016 the party announced that it would finally support the sole candidate of the presidential majority, and asked Denis Sassou-Nguesso to be this candidate.

Obviously, the payoff for JMTT’s support (or blackmail dependent on your point of view) was the position as Minister of Hydrocarbons and so there was no way of easily removing him after the election. However, he was always considered more of an enemy than a friend of DSN and after the RDPS party only won 3 seats in the July 30th legislative elections and 2 seats in the August 31st Senatorial elections then it was seen as a significantly weakened force.

Shortly after this DSN pounced and it was in July 2018 that JMTT was accused of embezzling 2 billion CFA francs in what was seen as a political act designed to prevent him being a threat in the 2021 Presidential election.

With his party weak, his relationship with President DSN in tatters and the fact that he only got his position as Minister of Hydrocarbons through political blackmail 6 years ago it was inevitable that JMTT would be dismissed as Minister for Hydrocarbons when the new government is formed.


Why is this important for Zenith?

JMTT was never in favour of Zenith being allowed to renew the Tilapia license. It was effectively forced upon him because Andrea Cattaneo pitched the company to President DSN and the President forced Zenith on him. It would not surprise me if JMTT had his own candidate for the license who he may have favoured for "personal" reasons.

We know that JMTT is the man who appointed Teresa Goma as director of hydrocarbons and she was his attack dog that was always leaking negative stories to Africa Intelligence about the company. With JMTT now gone and powerless to influence things I fully expect Teresa Goma to follow him out the door shorty. Even if she does keep her job she will have to follow the wishes of her new boss, who in turn will want to keep the President happy. This will mean that Zenith will no longer have to put up with her obstructing the company.

If you look up the details about BJRI on Wikipedia then you will see that he is a very strong ally of DNS who has been characterised as an “honorary son” of the President. So whereas we previously had an outright enemy of DSN as minister we now have a decades old ally who was also a former director general of the National Oil Company of Congo (Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo, SNPC).

All in all things are looking good for Zenith. Whereas before we were having to negotiate with enemies of the president (and therefore enemies of Zenith), now we are going to negotiate with allies. This should hopefully mean that negotiations on the Production Sharing Agreement can start to move forwards quickly from this point forwards.

Well written. Do you know if AC actually went to Congo on April 23 as he said he intended? If yes, what could he have done there for three weeks if the political situation has not been ripe for negotiations? And dont you actually think that the negotiations were more or less finished before Christmas, but that the PSA just could not be signed so close to the election?

Hi Herman,

If AC has been in the Congo for the last three weeks then I think that he must have been there discussing the acquisition of further assets as IMO there was no way he could be discussing the PSA until the new minister for hydrocarbons was appointed this weekend. In the Stig Myrseth interview AC stated that he was working on another deal in the Congo so it could definitely be this. Also, we shouldn’t forget either that we are still owed $5.7 million by the SNPC – so it is also possible that he has been busy negotiating on that. Either way, I would be very happy with a new license or a repayment schedule for the SNPC money.

That said, I am not 100% certain that I ever read that AC was going to Congo. I think that it was just mentioned that he was going to Africa and then of course he could have been going to what he calls West Africa (but is actually Nigeria) to work on the acquisition of a field there that he said in the Stig Myrseth interview was “progressing very fast and could be a company maker”.

Re the PSA – I guess it depends what you mean by finished. I don’t think that the deal was ever going to get signed by JMTT and Teresa Goma as they were not friends of Zenith and probably had their own preferred candidate for the license – so I don’t think that we were ever going to get the negotiations done with them. However, it is possible that the structure of the PSA could have been done with the President’s representatives and that Zenith were told that it would be finalised after the election when DSN had his own man in place. Certainly AC indicated in the Stig Myrseth interview that he thought that the Tilapia deal would be done much sooner than many expect – which suggests that it is further along the line than we all think.

Meanwhile in Paris :

COOPÉRATION - arrivée du président de la République, Son Excellence, Monsieur Denis Sassou N’Guesso à Paris, en France. Il prendra part ce 18 mai au sommet sur le financement des économies africaines. Une quinzaine de Chefs d’Etat et de Gouvernement y sont invités.

Translate to:

COOPERATION - Arrival of the President of the Republic, His Excellency, Mr. Denis Sassou N’Guesso in Paris, France. On May 18, he will take part in the summit on the financing of African economies. About fifteen Heads of State and Government are invited to attend.

Aqualight 🇩🇰🇳🇴🇬🇧

Goma is/was not Zeniths problem. AC and his incompetence is the problem for Congo.

The new chief executive of hydrocarbons, Teresa Goma, who will work alongside oil minister Jean-Marc Thystere Tchicaya, is a close friend of the man in charge of the country's oil sector and son of the president, Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso "Kiki". Until her appointment by the council of ministers on February 28, Goma directed GE's sales division for Central Africa. While she may not have started out in the oil sector having graduated in finance from the Esc Pau Business School, the new head of hydrocarbons has spent her entire career in the sector. She previously worked for Baker Hughes before being country manager for Oryx Petroleum. The same council of ministers confirmed that the new CEO of state-run oil firm Societe nationale des petroles du Congo (SNPC), as we had announced in September last year, is the company's current director of finance, Raoul Ominga

Thank you...just add what you forgot wassa
Dated march 6 2018.
https://www.africaintelligence.com/oil--gas/2018/03/06/kiki-sassou-nguesso-pal-teresa-goma-takes-top-oil-role,108297208-art

Yes that is correct. Just shows who her friends is. Why haven`t AC commented on the letter from Goma?

After calming down, I think he was adviced to keep his mouth shut. (Better safe than sorry). Goma seemed very pissed that AC did his victory dance before the license formally was awarded, and she may have had a point. It does not seem to have effected Zeniths future in Congo. You dont pick a fight with the hand that feeds you, and AC did the right thing even though leaking a letter to the media before Zenith has even seen it, is very provocative.

Du stoler på Zeniths versjon som er en tabbe. Goma er venner med de som styrer nå så ikke bli overasket om hun og vennene sparker Zenith ut.

I så fall hadde det skjedd allerede tror jeg.

Tipper det allerede har skjedd. In her scathing reply, Goma points out that the review makes no reference to this permit and claims that investigations also threw up several missing elements, including the absence of a bank guarantee provided by Zenith's parent company and of legal documents proving the connection between Canoel Italia (the Congolese subsidiary visited by review panel) and Zenith Energy.

Jeg tror du tar feil, men i løpet av fire-seks uker tror jeg mye er avklart . Er enig med Goma at AC kan være manipulerende, men hun er ikke kjent for å oppføre seg sivilisert-spesielt ikke mot utenlendinger med ambisjoner i landet. Har forresten tjent mye penger pga deg. Dine innlegg forsterket kursnedgangen, og jeg fikk kjøpt på 4-5 øre og solgt mye på 15-18 øre. Så kjøpte jeg tilbake mer enn jeg hadde, og har nå et snitt på 10-11 øre. Lander de tilapia og SLK tror jeg vi er over 20 øre, og lander de i tillegg en stor lisens i Vest Afrika, passer vi nok 30 øre. Ellers er jeg jo enig i mye av det du skriver. Zenith er p.t ikke et seriøst selskap, men med litt kjeft og veiledning er det jo et håp om at de vil bli mer seriøse.

AC already clarified "financial and technical capabilities already evaluated by Congolis panel after IPU in last months" in last interview with Stig so bring something new alligation.

Do mean IPU? ( I see you changed it, so I am assuming yes)

New country manager in Congo, AC is in Congo from last 4 weeks, Insider already filled with 32,571,075 stock options and government including Hydrocarbon minister in placed so clock is ticking for PSA announcement in coming weeks including SLK deadline is June end.

How many stocks in total now for ZENA? Is this new stocks made available to the market?

Slk deadline? Its just a deadline given to Zenith by one of the sellers. The other seller gave Zenith until November to get the paperwork in order.

Wassa – the idea that Teresa Goma will kick Zenith out of Tilapia is total nonsense. If she has the power and influence that you suggest then it would have been her who was promoted to Minister for Hydrocarbons. The fact that she has not been shows that she is not a seriously powerful figure. Even if it is true that she is a friend of the President’s son then she will still have no power and no influence in a department that has been taken over by a new boss – a man who is a decades old friend and ally of the President himself rather that just an associate of one of his children.

I said months ago on another forum that once JMTT is dismissed then Teresa Goma will follow him and this is still what is going to happen. Goma does not have a good reputation amongst Congolese business people and It would appear that she has a track record of having: a firey temper, an unstable personality and a clear hatred of white people. In meeting with major Congolese oil companies in 2019 she had already offended so many company CEOs that the CEOS of Total Congo and Perenco Congo refused to attend a meeting with her to fix oil prices and the CEO of ENI Congo left the meeting before the organised lunch after being called an “apartheid white”. All of this can be seen in the article here. https://tinyurl.com/ycklls77

Teresa Gomez’s character is described as “angry and irritating”, she was only powerful and connected because of her close relationship with JMTT. Now he JMTT himself no longer has any power she will cease to be relevant to Zenith. JMTT and Goma were the problem for Zenith with Tilapia (probably because they had their own preferred bidder for the license). Their removal will definitely remove the logjam associated with moving the PSA onwards and it will almost certainly stop the constant briefing against the company to Africa Intelligence.

Goma is not friends with those in charge and she is not going to kick Zenith out. It is far more likely that she herself will be kicked out of office than that she will kick out Zenith from the Tilapia license. The new Minister for Hydrocarbons will want to put his own ally into her post and both of them will know that Zenith were selected as the preferred bidder for Tilapia by the President himself after all of the meetings that AC had with him.

I do not think that we will have to wait long to hear that Goma has been replaced. I also expect that the PSA will start progressing quickly too. Congo is starting to open back up and after the election and we always knew that this would be when the Tilapia license would move forwards.

To old and new investors I would just like to remind you of this excellent thread by MarketGunslinger. It seems like Wassa was wrong about Teresa Goma, and that we may shortly proceed with the checkpoint list.

Så sant, så sant!

Det er ikke meget Wassa har haft ret i, han håbede de gik konkurs, så tog fejl, stor stor fejl 🙈🙈🙈🙈
Han så sig blind på det negative, og lod sine følelser styre sit valg..