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ANGOLA
SEBASTIÃO Gaspar Martins, the chairman of Sonangol, revealed last week that Angola’s national oil company (NOC) was heading for partial privatisation.
Speaking to reporters in Luanda, Martins said that Sonangol planned to unload 30% of its equity by 2027. He did not say whether the company would pursue a stock market listing or transfer a larger stake to strategic investors, but he did note that the sell-off would take “some time” to arrange.
The NOC will plan the sale after it conducts a financial review, he added. In the meantime, he stated, Sonangol will also continue to divest non-core assets as part of a wider effort to streamline its operations.
Currently, Martins said, the company has drawn up plans for the sale of more than 72 non-essential subsidiaries. It is due to offer 11 of these assets to the public in April, he reported.
He went to say that Sonangol was looking to take a more active role in the development of the country’s crude oil and natural gas resources. It wants to become an operator of certain fields
instead of always assuming the status of a non-operating partner, he said.
Additionally, he remarked, the NOC wants to increase its share of Angola’s total oil produc- tion from 2% to 10%. The company is currently extracting about 27,000 barrels per day of crude, but it wants to push that number up to 120,000 bpd by 2027, he explained.
To reach this target, Martins reported, Sonangol will set up a 50:50 joint venture with the London-headquartered service provider Seadrill. The venture, which will be known as SonaDrill, will help the NOC step up explora- tion and development drilling in the offshore zone, he indicated.
Meanwhile, he said, the company intends to deploy the Sonangol Libongos drillship to the offshore Block 15/06, where it hopes to ascertain the potential of the Agidibo, Agogo and Ndungu prospects.
Additionally, it will seek to re-assign the posi- tion of operator at Block 5/06, another offshore site, to its subsidiary Sonangol Research & Pro- duction.
The programme is set to resume in March, when the government will offer up shares in three state firms, including Egyptian lender Banque du Caire.
Arab Refining is due to make its debut in the fourth quarter. It is the owner of 67% of Egyptian Refining, which recently built a multi-billion
dollar refinery near Cairo. Qalaa has said it wants to retain a controlling stake in the com- pany through an agreement with shareholders.
Meanwhile, Qalaa’s power generation arm Taqa Arabia is also preparing to go public. It helped develop a major solar power complex in UpperEgypt.
Sonangol hopes to sell 30% of equity by 2027
Sebastião Gaspar Martins, the chairman of Sonangol (Photo: Jornal de Negocios
Week 09 04•March•2020 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P7
