Offshore milestone in Pointe-Noire
At sunrise on 6 September, a pair of shimmering orange midwater arches rolled out of Eni Congo’s Yasika yard in Pointe-Noire, marking the first heavy-lift shipment linked to the Congo LNG megaproject and sending a clear signal that local content can scale.
The ceremony, overseen by presidential hydrocarbons adviser Stève Simplice Onanga and Eni Congo managing director Andrea Barberi, blended technical precision with patriotic symbolism, underscoring how energy infrastructure has become a pillar of national renewal in the Republic of Congo.
Engineering specifics of the arches
Midwater arches act as gravity-based support frames that suspend flexible risers and composite umbilicals between seabed and floating production units, reducing stress fatigue and ensuring continuous flow from high-pressure wells to processing vessels.
Each structure weighs roughly 300 tonnes, spans 35 metres, rises 25 metres and will carry seven risers plus two composite cables connecting drillship Scarabeo 5 to wellhead platforms WHP4RP, WHP5 and the FLNG Nguya, according to project manager René Okombi Yombi.
Three-month fabrication sprint
What makes the milestone remarkable is the timetable: fabrication began only on 12 June and finished within 90 days, a pace usually observed in long-established Asian yards, not in a facility that lay idle for nearly a decade.
Eni’s decision to revive Yasika, a 23-hectare base on the edge of the Atlantic, has poured fresh liquidity into Pointe-Noire’s workshops, welders and logistics firms, adding an estimated 900 direct and indirect jobs during the construction peak.
Yasika base returns to life
Barberi told guests that Yasika is designed to become “the central nervous system of Congo’s energy value chain”, orchestrating people, materials and equipment while meeting stringent health, safety and environment standards comparable to those enforced in European yards.
Government officials echo this narrative, framing the project as evidence that Congo’s hydrocarbon sector can decarbonise through gas monetisation while preserving sovereign control of strategic assets, a core objective of the Emerging Congo 2025 plan.
Strategic fit with Congo LNG plan
Congo LNG aims to aggregate 2.4 million tonnes per annum of gas from offshore fields into two floating liquefaction units, the first African deployment of FLNG at commercial scale outside Nigeria and Mozambique, analysts at Rystad Energy note.
By anchoring critical modules such as midwater arches to the seabed, Eni reduces interface risk and accelerates first gas, potentially bringing initial cargoes to market in 2025, a timeline that may bolster state revenues amid volatile oil prices.
Financing and local content dynamics
Financing for the USD 5-billion development reportedly combines Eni equity, export-credit backed loans and syndicated facilities arranged by African and European banks, although terms remain undisclosed pending financial close, banking sources told Bloomberg in July.
The local content dimension resonates strongly with the Congolese private sector. Steel plates were supplied by Metssa Congo, welding services by Société de Chaudronnerie de Pointe-Noire, and heavy-lift operations by the indigenous logistics firm Tati Group, representatives confirmed during the launch.
This vendor mapping aligns with the 2022 Hydrocarbon Code, which mandates a minimum 25% local participation in upstream contracts and offers tax deductions for skills-transfer programmes certified by the Hydrocarbons Ministry.
Safety, environment and market outlook
Safety performance has been equally notable: Eni celebrated sixty million accident-free man-hours across its Congolese operations, a statistic independently verified by Bureau Veritas and celebrated with a short documentary screened at the event.
Environmental advocacy groups remain attentive to methane emissions associated with gas projects, yet Eni argues that switching associated gas from flaring to LNG reduces the carbon intensity of national output and supports the government’s updated NDC under the Paris Agreement.
Economists at the regional central bank, BEAC, estimate that LNG exports could lift Congo’s current-account surplus by two percentage points and stabilise foreign-exchange reserves, provided global spot prices average USD 8 per million British thermal units.
For institutional investors, the midwater arches are more than engineering curiosities; they represent tangible progress on a schedule that underpins projected free cash flow, debt-servicing capacity and dividend resilience, factors closely watched by ratings agencies.
As the convoy left Yasika for the anchorage, applause rippled through the crowd, mixing optimism with pragmatism: the road to first LNG remains complex, but each locally built module cements Congo’s bid to become a responsible, reliable gas supplier to Atlantic markets.
