Courtesy of Reuters, an article on a recent agreement between The Democratic Republic of the Congo and its southern neighbor Angola to split up an offshore oil block that they have been fighting over for 50 years. Under the proposed agreement, DRC and Angola would each take 30% of the block, and the US company Chevron, which operates the block, would take 40%. As part of the agreement, Angola’s state-owned oil company would write off $200 million in debt that DRC’s state-owned oil company owes it, Bloomberg reports. A completed deal could also facilitate negotiations between the two states over other disputed offshore oil blocks that Angola has controlled for the past half-century.

Democratic Republic of Congo is nearing an agreement with neighbouring Angola over one of the offshore blocks between the countries that have been the subject of a 50-year dispute, Congo’s oil minister told Reuters.

Under the terms of the production-sharing deal proposed by Angola and Chevron, each country would take a 30% stake in block 14 and operator Chevron the remaining 40%, Didier Budimbu said in an interview with Reuters in Paris.

A successful deal could help ease tensions between the two countries over the blocks, which have long been controlled by Angola. Angola’s state-owned oil company Sonangol and Chevron did not respond to requests for comment.

“We are due to meet again very soon and things can move very quickly,” Budimbu said. “The two countries will have around 30%, and 40% for the operator.”

He said discussions were continuing on the other blocks straddling both countries on the Atlantic coast.

Budimbu said that as part of the agreement, Angola’s state-owned oil company Sonangol would write off a $200 million debt owed to it by Congo’s state oil company, Sonahydroc.