Human Rights Watch says pollution linked to Perenco’s operations poses health risks in western Congo, while an environmental audit commissioned by the government remains unpublished.
Communities living around the Democratic Republic of Congo’s only oil-producing area are being denied the information needed to understand potential health risks from pollution, according to a new investigation into operations associated with Perenco.
Human Rights Watch says satellite imagery, interviews and field observations indicate gas flaring, waste burning, spills and other forms of pollution near settlements in the Kongo Central province.
Residents described respiratory problems, chest pain, skin conditions and damage to crops. Those accounts are serious, but they do not by themselves establish that a particular Perenco operation caused each illness. Medical testing, emissions data and a credible epidemiological assessment would be needed to make that link.
That evidential gap is precisely why the government’s failure to publish an environmental audit matters. Congolese authorities commissioned a review in December 2024, but have not disclosed its findings or given communities a clear timetable.
Perenco disputes the allegations and says its operations comply with applicable standards. Any fair account must include that response. The company’s denial does not remove the need for data; it makes independent disclosure more important.
Oil without information
The DRC is usually discussed as a mining power because of cobalt and copper. Its oil sector is much smaller, but for communities living beside wells, pipelines, waste sites and flares, local exposure is immediate.
Perenco is the country’s sole oil producer and operates mature onshore and offshore fields in the west. The company’s economic importance gives it influence, while the state’s limited regulatory capacity can make independent supervision difficult.
Reuters reported the Human Rights Watch findings and Perenco’s response. The central public-interest question is not whether an advocacy organisation or an oil company should be believed automatically. It is why basic environmental evidence is not publicly available.
Communities need to know what pollutants have been measured, at what concentrations and over what period. They also need accessible information about water, soil and air quality, rather than technical reports held in Kinshasa.
Without that information, residents cannot make informed decisions or seek appropriate medical care. Officials cannot design a credible health response, and the company cannot demonstrate conclusively that its controls are working.
Flaring and mature fields
Gas flaring burns associated gas produced alongside oil. It may be used for safety or because infrastructure to capture and market the gas is unavailable. Continuous or poorly controlled flaring can release greenhouse gases and other pollutants.
Waste burning and spills present different risks. The effect depends on the material, duration, location and exposure pathway. A spill reaching soil or water may affect farming and fishing long after the immediate event.
Mature oilfields can be particularly difficult because older infrastructure requires maintenance and production may be dispersed across many small sites. Lower output does not necessarily mean lower environmental risk.
The company’s 2025 ESG report presents its environmental and social policies. Those commitments should be tested against site-level monitoring and enforcement records.
Corporate sustainability reporting is useful, but it is not a substitute for regulator-held data or an independent audit. A global aggregate can conceal local incidents; a local allegation can also misrepresent a wider operation. Disclosure allows the two to be compared.
The state’s responsibility
The Congolese government cannot outsource its duty to protect health. It is responsible for setting permits, inspecting operations, enforcing standards and informing the public.
If the 2024 audit found serious failures, delay prevents remediation and accountability. If it found compliance, publication would help answer the allegations. In either case, secrecy serves neither public confidence nor responsible investment.
Authorities should release the audit with any narrowly justified commercial redactions, identify the methods used and explain what follow-up inspections have occurred. Communities should be able to challenge findings and request further testing.
The government also needs a health assessment separate from the environmental audit. Measurements of emissions cannot establish the full human effect without medical and exposure data.
European responsibility
Perenco is described as a French-British oil company, making the case relevant beyond Congolese regulation. European governments and financial institutions increasingly require companies to examine environmental and human-rights effects across their operations.
The legal application of particular European due-diligence rules will depend on corporate structure and jurisdiction. The broader expectation is clearer: companies benefiting from European markets and expertise should not apply weaker transparency standards in African communities.
This is not an argument that European reporting should replace Congolese sovereignty. It is an argument for compatible accountability. Host-state regulation, company disclosure and home-state duties should reinforce each other.
EU Global recently examined how a sanctioned Russian-fuel tanker was linked to an oil spill near protected Omani waters. The Perenco case has a different setting, but the same lesson applies: environmental risk often becomes visible only after weak oversight and opaque operations have persisted.
What should happen now
The first step is publication of the government audit. The second is independent sampling of air, water and soil at sites identified by residents and satellite evidence. The third is a health programme able to compare exposed and less-exposed communities.
Perenco should disclose site-level flaring, spill and waste-management data, explain how complaints are investigated and state which remedial work has been completed. It should also permit credible independent verification.
Human Rights Watch and journalists must continue to distinguish reported symptoms from proven causation. Overstatement would make it easier to dismiss genuine concerns. Understatement would leave communities without protection.
The DRC wants investment from extractive industries and needs public revenue. Neither objective is served by uncertainty over whether oil production is harming the people living beside it.
An environmental audit was commissioned because the question required evidence. Keeping that evidence hidden turns a technical investigation into a governance failure. The communities affected should not have to choose between an advocacy report and a company assurance when their government already possesses findings it can publish.
