The Gabon Oil Company is the national oil and gas company of the African nation of Gabon. It is the successor to the Société Nationale Petrolière Gabonaise, which was disbanded in 1987. Gabon had no national petroleum company until the Gabon Oil Company was established in June 2011. Operations The government of Gabon controls petroleum and mineral rights within the state. Gabon's oil reserves are onshore, shallow water and deep water exploration blocks (geographic areas) and working fields. By the late 1990s, Gabon was producing 370,000 barrels of crude petroleum a day (bpd). Perenco, Shell, and TotalEnergies controlled 75 percent of the nation's total oil production. Gabon Oil Company was created in 2011 by presidential decree, and became the legal owner and manager of onshore and offshore petroleum in Gabon. Under a new hydrocarbon law passed in 2020, the government of Gabon automatically owns a 20 percent ownership interest in all petroleum development in the nation, with Gabon Oil able to purchase up to an additional 15 percent stake. Initially, the company focused on marketing crude and refined oil produced by private companies. While Gabon was without a national oil company, it leased and sold blocks for petroleum development to outside interests. Addax Petroleum, a Chinese company, surrendered its lease on the marginal Remboué oil field in September 2012, and Gabon Oil took control of the block. It was the first exploration and production contract signed by the new company. By 2014, Gabon was producing just 250,000 bpd, and was now sub-Sarahan Africa's fifth-largest oil producer. Gabon Oil's chief executive officer, Serge Toulekima, announced in May 2014 that the company would seek to buy in to these leases as a means of boosting the government's revenue as well as providing developers with capital to expand exploration and production. National oil production fell to just 220,000 bpd by early 2016. In October 2016, the company signed its first upstream contract, beginning production of 1,500 bpd in the Mboumba oil field. Gabon Oil took a 10 percent ownership interest in March 2019 in the Dussafu block held by BW Offshore. The cost of the transaction was estimated to be $28.5 million, and represented a reimbursement of 10 percent of development and production costs from April 2017 to date. By the end of 2018, Gabon was the third-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa. Only Angola and Nigeria produced more oil. Gabon Oil had