By Ndubuisi Micheal Obineme
Angola’s new National Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANGP) has announced that it will award more than 50 exploration blocks from deep waters to shallow basins in Angola’s oil industry.
The announcement was made by Eng. Paulino Jerónimo, Chairman of National Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANGP) at the Angola Oil & Gas Technology Virtual Conference 2020.
According to him, Angola has been consistent in production since 1955 and it reached a production level of 2 million barrels per day in 2008. But in 2016, Angola could not maintain this production level which led to the decline in its production.
He explained, “Today, we are making efforts to maintain our production levels. And the Angolan government has seen the need to restructure the oil sector which led to the establishment of National Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANGP).
“ANPG has been mandated to make concessions between 2019 – 2025. The agency will work towards awarding more than 50 exploration blocks from deep waters to shallow basins.
“We have an ongoing bidding round which is active, and we are working towards the pre-announcement and the signing of the contracts. The announcement of the 2020 blocks will be released anytime from December. After 20 days, we will launch the bidding rounds for 2021 and in March, we will start reviewing the proposals and in July we will start awarding the contracts and in November, we will commence the signing of new contracts.
“This will renew our interest on the 157 billion of barrels and 250 million cubic feet of natural gas prospect in Angola. It will also enable us to have a production of more than 1 million barrels per day. It requires an investment of $850 million and around $650 million will come from other financial sources and about $180 million will come from the agency based on our budget allocation.
“There are also opportunities for the development of the marginal fields. Our activities include the operation of local content in the upstream segment. We have established a working group to ensure the implementation of the necessary conditions of our local content policies.
“We will carry out activities to support the Presidential decree on local content and monitor the development plans for human resources which are approved by the ministry of human resources which has commenced since November this year.
“There are many opportunities in Angola for the oil and gas sector. We are inviting you to invest in Angola.”
ANPG is a new entity and regulator of the oil and gas sector in Angola. The Ministry is responsible to regulate and formulate the policies and make specific decisions for Angola’s oil and gas sector.
Another activity of ANPG is overseeing the recently enacted strategy of exploration which has four main objectives namely, the availability of oil activities, segmenting the basins in Angola, expanding the geological knowledge of oil resources, and execution of the strategies and authentication of exploration activities.