Cameroon’s National Refining Company (Sonara) approved on August 13 the Acceleration Plan for Restructuring and Rehabilitation Measures for Refining Restart within 24 months (Parras 24). The initiative agreed upon during a Board Meeting aims to resume production by 2027 with government support.

 “Parras 24 is designed to relaunch Sonara’s core functions and ensure the continuity of petroleum product supply,” the company’s official statement said. The plan calls for recapitalization and new partnerships to fund the rehabilitation and quick restart of production. Sonara has not yet clarified whether recapitalization will involve debt buyback or fresh capital injection. In June, a joint delegation from UBAF, ING, and Mauritius Commercial Bank had proposed potential financing for the project.

Technically, Parras 24 aims to restore facilities to their state before the May 2019 fire that severely damaged part of the refinery. At the same time, Sonara will implement a workforce management program to strengthen staff skills and prepare for operations to restart.

The company continues to struggle with high debt. It currently owes CFA261 billion to banks, restructured over 10 years since 2021 at an interest rate of 5.5%. It also owes CFA185 billion to Vitol, CFA8.5 billion to PSTV, CFA14 billion to Trafigura, and CFA20 billion to Mercuria Energy. Repayment of these debts has been ongoing since 2022 through a state mechanism that collects CFA47.8 on each liter of fuel sold at the pump.

While Parras 24 is underway, Sonara has assured partners and customers of steady supply. “The supply of refined products on the national and international market will continue in both quantity and quality until the full restart of the refinery,” the company said.

This ambitious plan, combining strategic financing, technical rehabilitation, and workforce development, marks a decisive step for Cameroon’s oil sector and the stability of its domestic market.

Source: Business in Cameroon

As of end-June 2025, Cameroon’s domestic public debt, excluding arrears, which are invoices pending payment for around three months, and floating debt, stood at CFA3,814.4 billion, representing 11.6% of GDP. The figure was disclosed by the Autonomous Sinking Fund (CAA) in its latest update on Cameroon’s public debt situation.

According to the CAA, 55% of this debt is made up of public securities issued by the government on the BEAC market. This market, operated by the central bank of the CEMAC region (Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Chad, and the Central African Republic), has become one of the Cameroonian state’s main financing sources.

On this market, the Treasury issues two main types of instruments: Treasury bonds (OTA), with maturities between two and ten years, typically used to finance infrastructure projects; and Treasury bills (BTA), with maturities under one year, mostly used to manage temporary cash flow needs.

However, as revealed in the CAA’s latest report, “with regard to Treasury bills in particular, which have increased by 11.6% year-on-year as of end-June 2025, discussions are underway to mitigate the underlying refinancing risk, due to mounting pressure on the domestic market’s capacity.”

In other words, faced with rising BTA issuance costs on the BEAC market in recent years—and the increasing difficulty for CEMAC states to raise targeted amounts because of competition and prudential limits on banks serving as primary dealers (SVTs)—the Cameroonian government is actively considering other financing options.

“It is within this context that the Head of State signed a decree on May 19, 2025, authorizing the Minister of Finance to raise loans on international financial markets, up to a maximum of CFA200 billion, for the purpose of financing 2025 Treasury operations,” the CAA noted.

At the same time, the government is working to secure the full mobilization of the funds it seeks on the domestic market, despite saturation among local intermediaries—mainly the SVT banks. To that end, it has taken steps to attract new investors to the subregional public securities market.

In July 2025, Cameroon raised CFA200 billion on the BEAC market through a bond issuance supported by a swap arrangement that allowed Afreximbank to convert foreign currency into local currency. This made it possible for the bank to subscribe to the public offering.

Thanks to this deal with the Cameroonian government, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) became the first foreign investor to participate in the BEAC public securities market, which has been operational for nearly 14 years.

The transaction also comes ahead of a leadership change at Afreximbank. Starting in September 2025, Cameroonian legal expert George Elombi is set to take over as head of the pan-African institution.

Source: Business in Cameroon

As of June 30, 2025, China remains Cameroon’s largest bilateral creditor, according to the Caisse autonome d’amortissement (CAA), the country’s public debt agency. China accounts for 65% of Cameroon’s bilateral debt, representing 20.2% of total external debt, officially estimated at CFA2,648.3 billion.

This puts China’s share at 2.5 times that of France, a historic partner, which holds 25.6% of Cameroon’s bilateral debt, or 8% of total external debt. The CAA said China continues to be “a preferred partner in the infrastructure and energy sectors.”

China has become Cameroon’s main investor over the past decade, driven by large infrastructure projects launched in the 2010s. These include bridges, roads, and dams, mostly financed by Eximbank China. The loans are tied to Chinese firms, meaning each agreement designates a Chinese contractor to carry out the work.

Chinese companies remain active in Cameroon’s infrastructure and energy sectors. Major players include CCCC, CWE, CHEC, and Sinohydro in construction, and Huawei and ZTE in telecommunications.

While these loans have funded key infrastructure, they come with high repayment obligations. Chinese loans are typically non-concessional, adding pressure to debt servicing. In the first quarter of 2024, Cameroon repaid CFA148.2 billion to Eximbank China—CFA34.7 billion in interest and CFA113.5 billion in principal. These were the country’s largest repayments to any creditor group during that period.

The size of China’s loan portfolio has created repayment difficulties. In July 2019, Cameroon secured a rescheduling agreement with Eximbank to avoid default. The deal covered 22 projects valued at about CFA150 billion and allowed 70% of the principal due from July 2019 to March 2022 to be rescheduled.

Source: Business in Cameroon

Cameroon has laid the foundation stone for the construction of a new oil refinery and petroleum reserve depot in the southern part of the country, according to the state-run National Hydrocarbons Corporation (SNH).

The refinery, which is constructed on a 250-hectare site within the Kribi industrial port zone, will have a processing capacity of 30,000 barrels per day, said Nathalie Moudiki, who represented the executive general manager of SNH at the occasion on Thursday.

She added that the fuel storage terminal will have an initial capacity ranging from 250,000 to 300,000 cubic meters.

The new refinery is designed to process Cameroon’s crude oil, aiming to reduce fuel imports by 30 percent, according to SNH.

The construction works are expected to take 18 months. It will be Cameroon’s second oil refinery upon completion. The country’s lone refinery in the seaside resort town of Limbe has been shut down since 2019 following a devastating fire. Cameroon has since relied on imported refined fuel.

Source: Xinhuanet

Given the Cameroonian government’s ongoing persecution and arbitrary detention of journalists, the country has failed to meet a US statutory requirement on progress toward the rule of law and the protection of human rights.

Ahead of the July 18 public hearing on country eligibility for US trade benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), Freedom House issued the following policy statement:

“In partnership with the Committee to Protect Journalists, Freedom House has submitted a written comment urging the US government to find that Cameroon should not be eligible for AGOA trade benefits for calendar year 2026 due to its repression and detention of journalists.

“To be eligible for trade benefits under AGOA, sub-Saharan African countries must meet statutorily defined criteria, several of which relate to human rights. They include (1) establishing, or making continual progress toward establishing, the rule of law and the right to due process, a fair trial, and equal protection under the law; (2) not engaging in gross violations of internationally recognized human rights; and (3) cooperating with international efforts to eliminate human rights violations. However, as the ongoing repression and detention of journalists makes clear, Cameroon does not fully meet these criteria.

“As detailed in our written comment, journalists in Cameroon who are charged, arrested, and criminally prosecuted are routinely subjected to egregious violations of their due process and fair trial rights. More generally, as Freedom House has documented in its annual reports, due process and the rule of law in Cameroon have declined in recent years. In Freedom in the World 2019 and Freedom in the World 2020, Cameroon received a score of 1 out of 4 on the indicator for due process and 1 out of 16 for the larger rule-of-law subcategory, but each year since based on collected evidence, the country has received a score of 0 for both subcategories. 

 “Moreover, by frequently subjecting journalists to prolonged arbitrary detention—which is often accompanied by torture, a lack of any formal charges or trial, and incommunicado conditions that amount to enforced disappearance—Cameroonian authorities are perpetrating gross violations of internationally recognized human rights. Finally, by ignoring the opinions of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention—which has found that the detentions of journalists Tsi Conrad, Amadou Vamoulké, Mancho Bibixy Tse, and Thomas Awah Junior violate international law and called for their immediate release—the Cameroonian government is not cooperating with international efforts to eliminate human rights violations.

“Therefore, Cameroon should be designated as ineligible for AGOA trade benefits until it makes significant progress in its treatment of journalists. Such progress must include the release of the four detained journalists listed above, as well as a fifth, Kingsley Fomunyuy Njoka, who has been behind bars in violation of international law since 2020.”

Cameroon is rated Not Free in Freedom in the World 2025.

Culled from Freedom House

Cameroon plans to secure a “major external loan” of 650 billion CFA francs, approximately $1.16 billion, in 2026, according to an official document. The specifics of the transaction, which requires approval through the national budget law, have not yet been disclosed. It remains unclear whether the financing will come from international banks, multilateral institutions, partner nations, or through a bond issuance on public or private global capital markets.

Preliminary data as of March 31, 2025, shows Cameroon’s external debt stock at 8.56 trillion CFA francs, or about $14.1 billion. This figure notably appears to exclude the $550 million Eurobond arranged in 2024 by UK-based Cygnum Capital and U.S. investment bank Citigroup.

Breaking down the debt profile, 4.32 trillion CFA francs is owed to multilateral financial institutions, 2.88 trillion to bilateral lenders or partner states, and 1.69 trillion constitutes commercial debt. Of the commercial debt, 813.5 billion CFA francs comprises Eurobonds, including the 2024 issuance.

Another venture into international capital markets would not be surprising. However, Fitch Ratings downgraded the country’s sovereign risk rating to a negative outlook in May 2025. During its last Eurobond issue in 2024, Cameroon secured financing at a 9.5% interest rate, highlighting investor concerns about its credit profile. As of now, there has been no official confirmation of ongoing discussions with the International Monetary Fund, the African Development Bank, or other multilateral or bilateral lenders regarding this financing package.

Cameroon’s financial flexibility may expand with the anticipated repayment of its first Eurobond, issued in 2015, on November 19, 2025. This could open the door for new market activity. The proposed 2026 loan may, therefore, present an opportunity for investment banks and financial advisors specializing in sovereign debt operations.

According to government estimates, the funds will help bridge a 2026 budget financing gap of 2.12 trillion CFA francs. Should Cameroon opt for another Eurobond, it would mark its fourth such operation since 2015. The stakes are high, especially as investors assess the country’s economic stability in the lead-up to what is expected to be a contentious presidential election year.

Source: Business in Cameroon

Yvon Sana Bangui, Governor of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC), is urging CEMAC countries to refine their own crude oil. He noted that the six CEMAC nations collectively spend approximately 2 trillion CFA francs annually on imported petroleum products like gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and domestic gas. This spending continues despite five of the six countries, excluding the Central African Republic, being crude oil producers.

Speaking on June 17, 2025, in Yaoundé during “Finance Week,” a platform for financial stakeholders, the BEAC governor argued that building crude oil refineries within CEMAC could significantly reduce or even eliminate these imports. This shift, he emphasized, would help preserve and strengthen the region’s foreign exchange reserves, which are currently strained by the heavy reliance on fuel imports. These reserves consist of foreign currency payments received by states and their economic agents, enabling them to make payments to international partners.

“We have the raw material, and its price trend is downward. Let’s commit to an import-substitution strategy and refine our oil,” Bangui declared. He added, “The cost of road infrastructure awaited by economic operators is very high in our region. To avoid this, we must locally produce bitumen. We must locally produce lubricants. All of this comes from oil. Even fertilizer can be produced from oil.”

The Sonara Refinery Fire and Regional Self-Sufficiency

This isn’t the first time Bangui has advocated for building oil refineries in the CEMAC zone to protect foreign exchange reserves from the impact of imported refined petroleum products. On June 24, 2024, during a press conference following the BEAC Monetary Policy Committee’s second ordinary session, he stated, “In Cameroon, I am calling for the urgent restoration of Sonara—the National Refining Company.”

Cameroon has been importing all its refined petroleum products since a fire destroyed Sonara in May 2019. At the time of the incident, Sonara was refining imported oil, not Cameroonian crude. The rehabilitation of Sonara, estimated at 250 billion CFA francs, was initially scheduled to begin in 2022 but remains pending.

Bangui’s call for Sonara’s rehabilitation echoes his statements made on June 14, 2024, during a visit to the Djermaya refinery in Chad. There, he urged company leaders to increase production to curb imports. “Today, the fact that all CEMAC countries import petroleum products places enormous pressure on our foreign exchange reserves. I issue a solemn call to the authorities and company leaders to do everything necessary to meet national and subregional demand,” he asserted.

Source: Business in Cameroon

 Cameroon has launched the disbursement of the third tranche of its 2022-2029 bond on May 27, 2025. This was announced by the Director General of the Central African Stock Exchange (BVMAC), Louis Banga-Ntolo, in a press release issued on June 11, 2025. Payments to investors began on May 28 through brokerage firms and account-holding banks.

A total of CFAF 61.6 billion will be distributed to investors who subscribed to this public bond issuance, which includes CFAF 14.6 billion in interest. The BVMAC specified that “the net coupon per bond amounts to CFAF 2,625, comprising CFAF 2,000 in capital repayment and CFAF 625 in interest.”

Cameroon’s 2022-2029 bond, listed on the BVMAC on September 28, 2022, features a 6.5% interest rate and a seven-year maturity. This issuance allowed the government to raise CFAF 235 billion.

According to the Ministry of Finance, investor interest was strong, with offers totaling CFAF 239 billion, surpassing the initial target of CFAF 200 billion. This robust demand led the government to retain CFAF 235 billion, an amount authorized through an overallocation approval granted by COSUMAF, the sub-regional financial market regulator.

Source: Business in Cameroon