Following the announcement in November that the biggest local oil firm, Total Gabon, would begin exploring for oil in several onshore blocks (December 2010, Economic performance), the sector has had more welcome news, this time from the country's second-largest operator, Shell Gabon. On December 10th Mr Bongo officially inaugurated production from the Koula field, Ngounié province, which Shell operates in partnership with Sinopec of China and Addax, a wholly-owned Sinopec subsidiary. The field is estimated to have recoverable oil deposits of around 40m barrels. Output by Shell Gabon (a subsidiary of UK-Netherlands major, Shell, in which the government owns a 25% share) currently averages a reported 60,000-65,000 barrels/day (b/d), but the firm hopes that the contribution from the Koula field will increase this to 82,000-87,000 b/d. This would make it the leading producer in the country if Total's output remains steady, and increase the country's total production by around 10%.

In other positive news for the sector, a French oil firm active in Gabon, Maurel and Prom, announced in January that two test wells drilled in the Onal prospecting block-located a few kilometres inland from Port-Gentil and in which it has an 85% production stake-had produced encouraging results. The company announced plans to bring these reserves on stream by the second quarter of 2011. Maurel and Prom's output averaged 16,900 b/d in the last quarter of 2010, a slightly disappointing result that was the result of unforeseen technical difficulties. Nonetheless, the company's output peaked at over 20,000 b/d at the end of December. Yet despite these positive developments for the sector, Gabon's oil industry still suffers from regulatory uncertainty and industry-wide reluctance to prospect for oil in deep waters offshore, where the country is believed to have the greatest hydrocarbons potential, since the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year.