Petroleum and Lake Kivu methane: Law N° 13/2016 on petroleum exploration and production, the licence-plus-agreement model, exploration and production terms, discovery and appraisal deadlines, flaring, pipelines and decommissioning, the Lake Kivu basin, methane-to-power projects and their legal basis, and downstream fuel trade under Law N° 85/2013 and RURA

Three regimes: upstream petroleum, methane and downstream trade

Hydrocarbons are outside the mining regime: Article 2 of Law N° 072/2024 of 26/06/2024 on mining and quarry operations excludes them from the definition of minerals. Three separate sets of rules apply instead. Upstream oil and gas exploration and production are governed by Law N° 13/2016 of 02/05/2016 governing petroleum exploration and production activities, published in the Official Gazette n° 21 of 23/05/2016 and in force on publication (Article 47), which gives the licensing powers to the Minister in charge of petroleum exploration and production. The Rwanda Mines, Petroleum and Gas Board (RMB), established under Presidential Order N° 028/01 of 18/05/2023, has the mission 'to regulate and manage mineral, quarry, oil and gas' and, in the words of the Ministry of Infrastructure (MININFRA), manages the upstream development of petroleum and gas. Policy is set by the Upstream Petroleum Policy adopted by Cabinet on 12 June 2013 and MININFRA's Energy Policy of February 2025.

Lake Kivu methane, the only hydrocarbon produced in Rwanda, has no statute of its own and is developed through agreements with the Government, with the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA) monitoring technical and safety matters. Downstream trade in fuels, the activity most foreign investors meet first, is governed by Law N° 85/2013 regulating petroleum and petroleum products trade in Rwanda and regulated by RURA. Each regime is explained below; the tax regime for mining in Mineral tax, royalties and fiscal terms does not apply to petroleum, whose fiscal terms are set in the petroleum agreement and the general tax laws.

State ownership and the licence-plus-agreement model

Article 3 of Law N° 13/2016 vests all rights of ownership and control of petroleum on, in or under any land in Rwanda 'only in the State without prejudice to any right of ownership that any person may possess to the land', and provides that no person may explore for or produce petroleum except under a licence issued under the Law and a petroleum agreement. 'Petroleum' means crude oil and natural gas recovered from a petroleum reservoir, and a 'person' includes a company or other entity with legal status (Article 2). Exploration and production take place on the basis of a reference map of blocks, to be established by an Order of the Minister (Article 4).

The licence and the agreement are inseparable. The Minister invites an accepted applicant to negotiate an agreement and grants the licence within 7 days after both parties sign it (Articles 6, 7, 21 and 22). Under Article 41 the agreement elaborates the rights and obligations of the parties, and under Article 42 it takes one of five forms: concession, joint venture, production sharing, service contract or equity participation. The Law itself sets no royalty, profit split, State participation level or cost recovery limit; those are matters for the agreement, whose format and content are to be fixed by Ministerial Order (Article 43). RMB and the East African Community's petroleum promotion materials state that a model production sharing agreement is offered for the Lake Kivu basin.

The Ministerial Orders the Law calls for, on the reference map, application requirements, the exploration performance guarantee, renewal requirements, decommissioning, reports, transfers, the format of agreements and administrative sanctions (Articles 4, 5, 10, 14, 20, 25, 28, 29, 36, 37, 43 and 44), had not been found by 10 October 2026, and the Energy Policy of February 2025 records that upstream regulations 'are not yet developed'. Until they exist, the petroleum agreement carries almost the whole legal relationship, and its drafting matters more than in a fully regulated regime. Disputes with the Minister go to 'the competent institution in accordance with relevant laws' (Article 27); an investor should negotiate an arbitration clause, explained in Arbitration law and KIAC.

The exploration licence

A person intending to explore applies to the Minister (Article 5). The Minister answers in writing within 90 days, inviting the applicant to negotiate an exploration agreement or giving reasons for refusal (Article 6), and grants the licence within 7 days after the agreement is signed (Article 7). The licensee has the exclusive right to explore for petroleum in the exploration area and to carry out the works needed for that purpose only (Article 8).

The licence is valid for 3 years (Article 9). A renewal must be applied for within the 90 days before expiry; the renewed licence lasts no more than 3 years and is 'renewable only once for not more than two (2) years' (Article 10), so the maximum exploration period is 8 years. RMB's website refers to exploration licences of 'up to six years'; the Law's own figures should prevail. The Minister answers a renewal application before the current licence expires and gives written reasons for a refusal (Article 11).

The licensee must meet the work plan and expenditure stated in the licence and agreement, submit a work plan, projected expenditure and activity report before starting and one month before the end of each year, and may amend the plan by agreement but not so as to reduce the overall work and expenditure committed for the licence term (Articles 12 and 13). Before starting it must show the Minister a guarantee that it will implement the work plan (Article 14). It may relinquish part of the area by written notice given at least 3 months before the intended date (Article 39).

Discovery, appraisal and the production licence

A discovery must be reported to the Minister in writing within 30 days (Article 15), and within 90 days of the discovery the licensee must state whether it is of commercial interest (Article 16). Within 2 years of a notice that it is, the licensee prepares an appraisal programme for the Minister's approval covering the composition and quality of the petroleum, the depth, thickness and boundaries of the reservoir, well productivity and estimated production capacity (Article 17). The exploration licence over a discovery area may cease to have effect if the licensee does not apply for a production licence in time or the discovery is not of commercial interest (Article 18).

Where appraisal shows a producible reservoir, the exploration licensee has priority to apply for a production licence, but must apply before its exploration licence expires; any other capable person may apply for an area not covered by someone else's valid exploration licence (Article 19). The Minister answers within 90 days and, after an agreement is negotiated and signed, grants the licence within 7 days (Articles 21 and 22). A production licence lasts 25 years (Article 24); a renewal must be applied for within the 12 months before expiry and is for a non-renewable 10 years (Article 25). Where production areas include shared blocks, the Minister may order the licensees to enter into a unit production agreement (Article 26).

Operations, transfers, cancellation and decommissioning

Licensees must work in a proper and safe manner and in accordance with good oil field practices (Article 30). Flaring natural gas requires the Minister's prior authorisation, except where a Government expert in the area approves it to protect the safety and health of personnel or to avoid damage to property (Article 31). No pipeline may be built, operated, altered or rebuilt without the Minister's written authorisation; the application must explain construction and materials, environmental impact and mitigation and end-of-life removal, and the Minister answers within 30 days (Article 32). Staff training follows the petroleum agreement, with an annual compliance report (Article 33); measurement and weighing methods need the Minister's approval and may not be changed without it (Articles 34 and 35); and reports and records are due throughout the licence and on its expiry (Article 36).

A transfer needs a written application to the Minister, and the Law treats as transfers any sale or assignment of the licence, a mortgage of the licence or seizure of a mortgaged licence, and transfers of 'dominant shares' in a licensee (Article 37). The transferee takes over the transferor's rights and obligations after registration. The Minister may cancel a licence for breach of the Law, the agreement or the licence conditions, and a licence is also cancelled where the Minister has given at least 30 days' written notice of the intention to cancel and the licensee has not remedied the breach (Article 38). On cancellation, expiry or relinquishment, the licensee must remove its materials, plug or close all wells and decommission the area by the deadline in the agreement (Article 40). A production licensee submits a decommissioning plan for approval and makes decommissioning funds available within the period the Minister sets (Articles 28 and 29). Administrative faults and sanctions are left to a Ministerial Order (Article 44), and environmental and social impact assessment rules apply as for any other project (Mining agreements, local content and community).

The Lake Kivu basin: where exploration stands

Rwanda has no proven oil and no producing petroleum field. Exploration interest centres on the Lake Kivu basin, part of the western branch of the East African Rift. According to the Rwanda update published by the East African Community's petroleum conference secretariat, surveys have acquired 466 km of 2D seismic, 3,438 km of marine gravity and magnetic data and 514 km of further seismic data; the results indicate thermogenic hydrocarbon gas, and neither that update nor RMB's oil and gas page reports any exploration well, RMB listing exploratory drilling as an investment opportunity. Rwanda promoted the basin at Africa Oil Week from 1 to 3 September 2026 and will host the East African Petroleum Conference and Exhibition (EAPCE'27) in Kigali from 9 to 11 March 2027.

Exploration rights over the basin have been granted before, but none has led to an exploration well. From about 2007 the Canadian company Vanoil Energy held a technical evaluation agreement with the then Ministry of Natural Resources over about 1,631 km² of the East Kivu Graben beneath Lake Kivu, giving it the exclusive right to negotiate a production sharing contract; it carried out seismic work, but no contract was signed, the agreement expired in June 2013 and the parties ended their discussions in January 2014. A Chinese contractor, BGP, won a tender in 2016 before talks with it collapsed, and in February 2017 the Rwandan company Ngali Mining, part of Ngali Holdings, was reported to have been awarded petroleum exploration rights in Lake Kivu, with the terms still under negotiation and never published. In October 2018 the Government paused bids from explorers so that it could complete its own surveys first; the 2D seismic acquired in 2021 and 2022 came from that State-led work. On 15 January 2025 RMB told Parliament that the surveys had identified 13 structures favourable for exploratory drilling, first reported in the press as oil wells, a description RMB then corrected, and that it was looking for partners for the next stages. All of this concerns oil and gas trapped in rock beneath the lake. Methane dissolved in the lake water itself is a different resource, already extracted under concessions granted by the Government, as explained below.

We have found no published petroleum agreement or exploration licence currently in force under Law N° 13/2016, and RMB presents exploratory drilling as an open opportunity. Because earlier rights were granted, an investor interested in a block should ask RMB in writing whether any existing agreement, option or right of first refusal, including any arising from the 2017 award, still affects that area before negotiating.

An investor considering a block should therefore expect frontier terms: an agreement negotiated with the Minister, without the Ministerial Orders that would normally fix the application file, the performance guarantee and the model contract. The main legal protections will come from the agreement itself, from the Investment Code, under which energy is a priority sector, and, for a foreign investor from a treaty State, from a bilateral investment treaty (Investment guarantees, treaties and reporting).

Lake Kivu methane: the resource and the projects

Lake Kivu, on the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), holds methane dissolved in its deep water. Official estimates differ: RMB gives 60 km³; RURA gives around 55 billion cubic metres, renewing at about 120 million cubic metres a year, with a power potential of about 700 MW shared equally between Rwanda and the DRC; and MININFRA's Energy Policy uses 40 billion cubic metres. Any project model should state which estimate it uses.

Two plants extract the gas and generate electricity. KivuWatt, developed by a subsidiary of ContourGlobal, has a nominal gross capacity of 26 MW according to Rwanda Energy Group (REG), or 26.4 MW in MININFRA's Energy Policy, and has been in commercial operation since 31 December 2015. Shema Power Lake Kivu is designed for 56 MW net output under a 25-year power purchase agreement with REG, whose website states that the plant was generating 37.5 MW and would soon reach full capacity. MININFRA's Energy Policy of February 2025 puts methane capacity at 82.4 MW, or 21.1% of Rwanda's installed generation capacity of 406.4 MW, and the press has reported a further 100 MW of planned capacity not yet implemented. RMB states that KivuWatt and Shema Power Lake Kivu together extract methane to produce up to 92 MW, and that Gasmeth Ltd is developing a project to extract and compress methane as compressed natural gas (CNG) for commercial use, under a concession reported as granted in February 2019; the East African Community expects production of about 40 million standard cubic feet a day in 2028. REG also lists the Kibuye Power 1 pilot in Karongi District (design capacity 3.6 MW, about 3 MW produced), whose barge and onshore plant Symbion Power acquired in 2016 and plans to revive and scale up to 25 MW. The Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA) records methane concessions granted to KivuWatt, Shema Power Lake Kivu, Gasmeth and Magma Energies. The lake also holds about 300 km³ of dissolved carbon dioxide, on RMB's estimate, which RMB promotes as a commercial opportunity (for example as a feedstock for synthesis gas, and for refrigerants, welding and biofuel production); no carbon dioxide extraction project is reported.

Lake Kivu methane: the legal basis

No statute deals specifically with methane extraction from Lake Kivu. RMB treats it as part of its upstream remit, and RURA's mandate under Law N° 09/2013 of 01/03/2013 establishing RURA covers monitoring and investigation of the technical and safety aspects of the gas sub-sector. Law N° 13/2016 defines petroleum as crude oil and natural gas 'recovered from a petroleum reservoir'; methane dissolved in lake water does not sit easily in that definition, and the projects have instead been structured through agreements with the Government and power purchase agreements with REG. MININFRA's Energy Policy of February 2025 lists the regulation of the gas sub-sector as a gap, and a draft gas law reported in 2019 had not been enacted by 10 October 2026.

Because the lake's gas is stratified and shared, extraction is subject to joint safety rules. On 5 March 2020 Rwanda and the DRC signed a Validation Act adopting revised Management Prescriptions for the safe exploitation of Lake Kivu gas, which set the technical conditions all extraction must respect. Since 2021 compliance has been monitored by REMA, whose Environment Analytics and Lake Kivu Monitoring Division took over the Lake Kivu Monitoring Programme created in 2008 within the Rwanda Energy Group: it inspects the extraction plants for safety and environmental compliance, tracks how re-injected water re-stratifies and follows the stability and ecology of the lake, and checks that operators comply with the Management Prescriptions. The Regional Economic Integration Framework signed with the DRC on 4 December 2025 commits both States to 'the cooperative and sustainable exploitation of methane gas from Lake Kivu for electricity generation and transmission', possibly through the institutions of the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (Strategic minerals and regional deals). A new methane developer should expect to negotiate a concession or project agreement with the Government, an electricity generation licence from RURA and a power purchase agreement with REG, and to comply with the Management Prescriptions.

Downstream: importing, storing and selling fuel

Law N° 85/2013 regulating petroleum and petroleum products trade in Rwanda, published in the Official Gazette n° 46 of 18/11/2013, requires any person performing any type of petroleum trade to hold a licence (Article 6), in two categories (Article 7); 'any person' may take part in the trade (Article 24), and a licensee must keep an address in Rwanda (Article 19). Importers, wholesalers and retailers must hold minimum stocks at their own expense (Article 31), on pain of licence withdrawal (Article 37), and the Government holds strategic stocks for emergencies (Article 32). General misconduct is fined RWF 2,000,000 to RWF 5,000,000, with RWF 500,000 a day for repetition (Article 35), and adulteration RWF 5,000,000 to RWF 20,000,000 or withdrawal of the licence (Article 36). The Law places the trade under the Ministry in charge of trade (Article 4), and Prime Minister's Order N° 131/03 of 10/05/2016 designates RURA as the regulator of the trade. RURA's rules include its regulation No 04/R/GP-EWS/RURA/2019 on storage and fuel import and regulations on liquefied petroleum gas (2012, amended 2018), road transport of petroleum products and service stations, and it sets maximum pump prices every two months. The Ministry of Trade and Industry (MINICOM) leads downstream legislation and the strategic reserve requirement.

Storage capacity was about 118 million litres, with targets of 230 million litres by 2029 and 299 million by 2035, and an 8,680 tonne LPG depot was due for completion by July 2026. Fuel import and retail are open to foreign-owned companies on the same licensing terms as Rwandan ones; the practical issues are RURA licensing, the minimum stock obligation, the price cap and foreign exchange for imports, discussed in Foreign exchange rules.