TotalEnergies deepens its African upstream bet, with Africa nearing half its operated output

TotalEnergies is concentrating a growing share of its upstream effort on Africa, where a sequence of near-term developments, frontier exploration and gas projects is intended to anchor the French major's production growth through 2026 and beyond. The continent already accounts for roughly half of its operated production and remains its single largest area of exploration spending.

The strategy spans several development phases. In the near term, the Republic of Congo is a priority: TotalEnergies committed $500-million in 2025 to drill additional wells at the Moho Nord field, targeting incremental output of about 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) from an asset that already represents close to half of the country's oil production. In April 2026 the company announced a further discovery at the Moho G structure, operated by TotalEnergies (63.5%) alongside Congo's SNPC and Trident Energy. In Angola, where TotalEnergies is the largest operator with interests across Blocks 17, 32, 0, 14 and 14K, the Quiluma and Maboqueiro gas fields are expected to come onstream to feed the Angola LNG plant, and the Kaminho deepwater development in the pre-salt Kwanza basin is under construction toward first oil in 2028.

In East Africa, Uganda's Tilenga project is advancing toward first oil, supported by the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), which will carry crude to Tanzania's port of Tanga, a development central to unlocking Uganda's onshore resources.

Frontier exploration sits at the longer-cycle end of the portfolio. In Namibia's Orange Basin, TotalEnergies is targeting a final investment decision on the Venus discovery by late 2026, potentially one of the most significant deepwater oil developments on the African Atlantic margin. In neighbouring South Africa, the company became operator of offshore Block 3B/4B, on trend with Venus, and has said it is preparing to drill there pending final regulatory approvals, as South Africa advances the implementing regulations for its Upstream Petroleum Resources Development Act.

That South African re-engagement, however, follows a pointed retreat that complicates the "doubling down" framing. In 2024 TotalEnergies moved to exit its Brulpadda and Luiperd gas-condensate discoveries in Block 11B/12B, finds it had spent at least $400-million to make, on the grounds that the complex deepwater finds could not be shown commercially viable given South Africa's small domestic gas market.

The company is redirecting that effort toward the oil-prospective Orange Basin. The sequence, a costly discovery relinquished in one basin while the company commits to drilling in another, is the clearest signal that TotalEnergies' African expansion is selective rather than indiscriminate.

The portfolio is tied to a modest global target, roughly 3% annual upstream growth, against which African operations are expected to deliver a disproportionate share. The logic is one of temporal sequencing: near-term cash flow from Congo, Angola and Uganda funds the longer-cycle, higher-risk frontier bets in Namibia and South Africa. Gas monetisation and emissions-reduction measures, including zero routine flaring commitments in several operations, run alongside.

For African producers, TotalEnergies' weighting toward the continent is a meaningful vote of confidence at a time when several majors are trimming exposure. But the South African exit is the necessary counterweight to that reading: the capital flows to the projects that clear the major's commercial threshold, and stalls or retreats from those that do not, regardless of how much has already been spent. The lesson for host governments is that attracting the exploration dollar is the easy part; keeping it through to a sanctioned development depends on market size, fiscal terms and the regulatory clarity that turns a discovery into a project.