Cameroon expects oil and gas production activity to contract sharply in 2027, highlighting the growing pressure on one of the country’s key extractive industries before new projects are expected to come online.
According to the Ministry of Finance’s 2027-2029 Medium-Term Economic and Budgetary Programming Document, prepared ahead of Parliament’s budget orientation debate, activity in the sector is projected to decline by 24.6% next year. The government attributes the downturn to lower crude oil output and, even more significantly, declining natural gas production.
The forecast comes as Cameroon prepares to lose, at least temporarily, its only liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility. The Hilli Episeyo, the floating LNG production vessel that made Cameroon an LNG exporter in 2018, is scheduled to leave the country’s waters in July 2026 after eight years of operations off the coast of Kribi.
Its departure will end the partnership between Norwegian shipowner Golar LNG, operator of the Hilli Episeyo, the state-owned National Hydrocarbons Corporation (SNH), and French energy company Perenco, Cameroon’s largest oil producer. The vessel’s annual LNG production capacity was increased from 1.2 million tons to 1.4 million tons in 2022.
Despite the projected decline in 2027, the government expects the sector to rebound gradually, with activity forecast to grow by 14.9% in 2028 and 18.1% in 2029. The recovery is expected to be driven by the start of production from new oil and gas fields.
That outlook reflects the government’s strategy of replacing output from maturing fields with new production capacity. In line with that objective, SNH launched an international call for expressions of interest on August 1, 2025, covering nine exploration and production blocks in the Rio del Rey and Douala/Kribi-Campo basins.
In a statement issued on April 24, 2026, the state-owned company said five of those blocks had been awarded for production-sharing contract negotiations. The Bolongo block in the Rio del Rey Basin was awarded to Octavia Energy Corporation Limited, while the Etinde Exploration, Tilapia, Elombo, and Ntem blocks in the Douala/Kribi-Campo Basin were awarded to Murphy West Africa Ltd.
However, the expected recovery from 2028 remains far from guaranteed. The awarded blocks are still in the contract negotiation phase. Production will depend on completing those agreements, securing investment, carrying out the necessary development work, and bringing the projects online within the government’s timeline. In other words, the projected rebound remains contingent on Cameroon’s ability to convert newly awarded exploration acreage into producing oil and gas assets.
The government’s 2028 target therefore marks the timeline it has set for reviving an industry weakened by declining output from mature fields and the impending departure of the Hilli Episeyo. Whether that recovery materializes will depend on the successful execution of the country’s next generation of oil and gas projects.