On April 16th in 2019 LUKOIL registered a subsidiary named LUKOIL Upstream Congo Anonymous Company Unipersonel in the Republic of Congo, city of Pointe-Noire. Agreements on the company’s participation in Congolese oil&gas projects were made during the visit of the President Denis Sassou Nguesso to Russia in May 2019.

In June 2019 LUKOIL announced the agreement with New Age M12 Holdings, providing the acquisition of 25% stake in the Marine XII project on the shelf of the Republic of Congo. The value of the transaction was $800 million, the deal officially closed in September.

The operator of Marine XII licensed block is ENI (65%), Congolese state company  Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo holds 10%.

On the Marine XII, five fields were discovered. The independent international auditing estimated the total reserves (2P) to be 1.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

In 2015 Nene and Litchendjili fields were put into service. Currently, the production of oil and condensate there stands at 28 thousand barrels of oil equivalent, production of gas — at 1.7 billion cubic metres. Gas from the Litchendjili is supplied to the power plant Centrale Electrique du Congo (CEC, 484 MW), 20% of which are held by ENI. In 2020 the gas production at the licenced block is expected to rise due to the increase in demand by CEC power plant because of its increased installed capacity (+170 MW).

The partners consider the possibility to monetize the reserves of the licensed block through exports of LNG.