Page 6 - AfrOil Week 42 2019

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Neither Ibrahim nor Bekele divulged many details about the project. They did not reveal what route the link might follow, how long it might be or how much it was likely to cost.
But they did indicate that the parties were considering proposals for co-operation on other schemes. For example, the Sudanese minister said that the parties had talked about expanding terminal facilities in Port Sudan “so as to accommodate a number of ships and gas and gasoline tankers.”
He also said that Ethiopian authorities had
expressed interest in joining an upstream devel- opment project in Sudan. Specifically, he said Addis Ababa was seeking to acquire a stake in a consortium known as Nile Petroleum Co. (NPC) and was drawing up a proposal to that effect.
Additionally, he said, the Sudanese and Ethiopian government had discussed technical co-operation in the area of oil and gas explora- tion and development. The two sides may team up to establish a joint information and training centre, he stated. ™
INVESTMENT
Angola hopes reforms will help boost oil production, attract investment
ANGOLA
JOSE Massano, the governor of Angola’s Cen- tral Bank, said last week that he hoped the gov- ernment’s plans for economic reform would facilitate efforts to privatise key state-owned enterprises, including a stake in the national oil company (NOC) and other assets in the hydro- carbon sector.
Massano told Reuters that Luanda was making changes in a bid to reassure the foreign firms that have been expressing “tremendous interest” in government-owned assets. Poten- tial partners have remained concerned about corruption, state interference in business and unfavourable investment conditions, he explained.
“Most of the investors, they express con- cerns [about] the security of getting funds into Angola,” he noted. But he stressed that he did not expect foreign companies to encounter any roadblocks on this front, saying: “In the past, we have had that difficulty, but we have also intro- duced changes.”
For example, he said, Angola’s govern- ment took action earlier this year to facilitate the process of repatriating funds. It not only cleared foreign partners’ outstanding requests to withdraw money from the country but also amended the legal regime to ensure that inves- tors would be able to repatriate funds through commercial banks, rather than working through the Central Bank, he stated.
Additionally, he said, Luanda has eliminated regulations that require outside investors to team up with a locally owned partner.
Reuters, meanwhile, noted that the latest reforms followed other changes. Last year, it reported, the government slashed taxes on smaller oilfields, bringing them down by 50% to a level of 10%, and set up a new independent agency, the National Agency for Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG), to assume responsibility for the sale and management of hydrocarbon concessions.
The Angolan government hopes that these and other reform measures will help shore up sagging oil output levels. It hopes to raise cash that Sonangol can use for exploration and development partly by attracting new partners and partly by selling off state-owned assets.
In August, officials in Luanda said the NOC had already drawn up a schedule for the asset sales and unloading its share in a refinery in Cote d’Ivoire before the end of 2019. In 2020, they added, Sonangol will offer its stake in China Sonangol, a joint venture with Hong Kong-based New Bright International Devel- opment, and 28% of Puma Energy, its joint venture with the international commodities trading firm Trafigura. Then in 2022, they said, it will launch an initial public offering (IPO) of stock.
Total investments
New projects and development programmes will also play a role in boosting Angolan oil production. For example, France’s Total has unveiled plans to resume offshore exploration work within a section of Block 17, a deepwater site, and at Block 48, an ultra-deepwater site, in 2020, Xinhua reported last week.
The Chinese agency quoted Olivier Jouny, the general manager of Total’s Angolan divi- sion, as saying that the French giant had also invested $2.5bn in three new projects this year. Jouny did not identify the projects but said that the influx of funds would help push Angolan output up by more than 100,000 barrels per day (bpd), Xinhua said.
He was speaking after a meeting with mem- bers of Angola’s National Assembly’s Commis- sion on Economy and Finance. ™
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Week 42 23•October•2019