Page 5 - AfrOil Week 05 2020

AfrOil COMMENTARY AfrOil
 But he did say that Sonangol was looking to abandon its long-standing practice of provide key support services to upstream projects led by international oil companies (IOCs). In doing so, he said, the NOC will create new opportunities for foreign oil eld services providers (OSPs) and other outside investors.
These changes could attract up to $10bn worth of foreign direct investment (FDI) to Angola over the next three years, he added.
Search for partners
O cials in Luanda intend to conduct an active search for new investors, the minister stated.
He explained that the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Petroleum had teamed up with Africa Oil & Power (AOP) to stage the second annual Angola Oil & Gas (AOG) Conference & Exhibition. is event will take place in mid- June in Talatona, a suburb of Luanda, he said.
e conference is designed to be “the high- light of an international investment drive aimed at bringing new deals to the table and signing up new entrants to Angola’s oil and gas sector,” he said, according to a statement from AOP. “Sur- rounding the conference will be a global drive to present opportunities to a targeted audience of relevant investors,” the statement said.
“Capital in ows into bankable projects will be a primary objective of the 2020 effort,” it added. “Ongoing initiatives being promoted include the 2020 oil and gas licensing round, marginal eld development, gas monetisation and attractive projects across the value chain, including the international tender for the Soyo re nery and the ramp-up of the Cabinda and Lobito re neries.”
Reform agenda
e sell-o s will complement Luanda’s push for regulatory reform, which began in 2018.
At that time, Angolan authorities enacted a number of new measures with the aim of reas- suring potential partners in oil and gas projects and assuaging their concerns about corruption, government meddling and an unfavourable investment environment. As Jose Massano, the governor of Angola’s Central Bank, noted last year, the country has worked to facilitate the process of repatriating funds.
On the one hand, he said, Luanda has cleared foreign partners’ outstanding requests
to withdraw money from the country. On the other hand, it has also amended the legal regime to ensure that investors can repatriate funds through commercial banks, rather than working through the Central Bank, he stated.
At the same time, he said, the government has eliminated regulations that require outside investors to team up with a locally owned part- ner. It has also slashed taxes on smaller oil elds, bringing them down by 50% to a level of 10%, he reported.
Massano also highlighted Angola’s decision to create an independent agency, the National Agency for Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG), to take responsibility for the sale and management of oil and gas concessions. is move will decentralise control over the hydro- carbon industry and give Sonangol more free- dom to seek new partners, he said.
The bene ts of exibility
Belarmino Chitangueleca, a member of ANPG’s executive board, has also talked up the advan- tages of the new regulatory environment.
In setting up a separate entity to act as con- cessionaire, he said, the government has granted the Angolan oil sector “ exibility, legal exibil- ity and ... a more streamlined approval process.” e change will help Sonangol attract the new investors it needs to maintain oil production lev- els, he was quoted as saying by World Oil.
Before these reforms were enacted, Chi- tangueleca added, a number of major invest- ment projects came close to the nal investment decision (FID) stage but “failed to take off.” IOCs’ plans faltered because of front-end load- ing and regulatory rigidity, he explained.
“ e government of Angola was losing e - ciency... in dealing with many separate pro- cesses and many standards for structuring the oil and gas sector ... New restructured legisla- tion is now in place, so we can talk about the development of marginal elds,” he commented.
“Now we have the result of new legislation,” he added. “We have examples of at least three projects already on board.”
It seems, then, that Angola is trying to present a di erent face to the world. e country wants to be known as more than a source of funds for family members of autocratic rules. It will have a chance to gauge the success of this approach at the AOG conference this summer.. ™
“ looking to
Sonangol is
abandon its long-standing practice of providing support to upstream projects led by IOCs
Angola launched its last bidding round in 2019 (Photo: Frontier)
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