Page 4 - AfrOil Week 05 2020

AfrOil COMMENTARY AfrOil
Angola’s Minister of Mineral Resources and Petroleum Diamantino Azevedo (Photo: Africa Oil & Power)
From scandal to sell-offs
Even as it pursues corruption charges against the daughter
of a former president, Angola is pushing ahead with oil and gas reforms
WHAT:
Luanda remains committed to the sale of a stake in Sonangol and the divestment of the NOC’s non-core assets.
WHY:
Reforms could help Ango- la secure the investment it needs to maintain oil production.
WHAT NEXT:
The country will make its case to investors during a conference in June..
ANGOLA has been in the headlines lately for all the wrong reasons, most of them related to an investigation into the activities of Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of the country’s former president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
e younger dos Santos is believed to be the richest woman in Africa, with a net worth of around $2bn. Her stock portfolio includes stakes in a wide variety of international companies, including the Portuguese oil and gas company Galp.
Much of her wealth appears to be ill-gotten. Documents obtained by the International Con- sortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) indi- cate that she may have siphoned several billion dollars out of the national oil company (NOC) Sonangol between June 2016 and November 2017, when she served as head of the company.
e results of the ICIJ probe led Angola’s gov- ernment to launch an investigation of its own – and eventually to charge the former president’s daughter of conspiring with her husband and a friend to embezzle more than $1bn from Sonan- gol. Luanda is reportedly seeking to recover this sum and has frozen dos Santos’ assets in a bid to prevent further losses.
Meanwhile, her troubles are not con ned to Angola. Eurobic, a Portuguese bank, declared in
late January that it intended to sever its ties with her and her associates. It also said that dos San- tos would be selling her 42.5% stake in the bank.
In contrast to this catalog of scandal, Angola’s current government is currently talking up its plans to pursue a reform agenda in the oil and gas sector.
Sell-offs
Minister of Mineral Resources and Petroleum Diamantino Azevedo outlined Luanda’s next steps during a recent visit to London.
In late January, Azevedo talked up Luanda’s plan for the partial privatisation of Sonangol. He reiterated that the government was committed to selling up to 30% of the NOC’s stock through a public listing.
e sale will help the company raise money to cover the costs of investment projects and make it more competitive, he said.
He also confirmed that Angolan author- ities would proceed with the divestment of the NOC’s non-core assets. The government intends to sell Sonangol subsidiaries that are not involved in the core activities of exploration and production, he said.
Azevedo did not provide a comprehensive
list of the assets slated for sale 
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 05 05•February•2020