A Sonangol EP and the Norwegian state oil company, Equinor ex-Statoil, signed a memorandum today in Luanda, so that Swedish oil company continue to invest in exploration and contribute to increasing oil production in Angola.
“The memorandum already has some oil concessions in Angola for exploration work, such as block 5/06, block 18/15 among others. We have other opportunities, whether in the Congo basin, Kwanza Basin, the tendency is to enter the Benguela basin”, explained the president of the Sonangol board of directors, Carlos Saturnino, at the signing ceremony.
Based on this memorandum, the Norwegian state oil company Equinor wants to work together with the country’s oil company for new discoveries and new investments in the oil sector in Angola.
Carlos Saturnino explained that the signed memorandum comes within the scope of Sonangol’s role as a concessionaire to promote and attract new investments for hydrocarbon concessions in Angola.
Carlos Saturnino highlighted that Equinor has been a partner of Sonangol for decades, being in several blocks in Angola, “it has also been an operator and this cooperation instrument will allow Sonangol and Equinor to continue discussing investment and business opportunities in exploration blocks that Angola very much needs, in blocks that have entered into development and also possibly some business opportunities in blocks that are already in production”.
He stressed that Equinor fortunately decided to continue investing in Angola, intending to return to being an operating company in hydrocarbon concessions.
For his part, the president of Equinor’s executive committee, Eldar Saetre, explained that there are no amounts to be revealed at this stage according to the signed memorandum, but studies must be carried out.
With this memorandum, he said, the Norwegian state oil company, which works in the extraction of natural gas and oil, is looking for more opportunities, and this partnership is an extension of those opportunities.
The memorandum of understanding maintains the commitment, between the parties, to develop greater cooperation in the areas of management, logistics, financial, scientific, research, development and operations in the oil sector.
The document establishes the guidelines, through which Sonangol and Equinor, should reinforce their cooperation and define the bases for potential future investments to be made by Equinor, after its decision to continue investing in Angola, and, jointly , consider the approach to the opportunities and technical challenges relating to oil exploration and development.
According to data published on the website of the company Equinor (formerly Statoil), the Angolan continental shelf is the largest contributor to oil production outside Norway. Since 1991, when it entered the Angolan market, production has risen to just over 200 thousand barrels of oil/day.
For the Norwegian oil company, Angola is not just a key market today, with proven reserves of 364 million barrels of oil, equivalent in 31 fields in West and North Africa, of which 26 are in Angola.
These important unexplored fields make Angola an essential market for international growth in the coming years.
Angola has a daily production that varies between 1.5 and 1.6 million barrels of oil and intends to add another 250 thousand barrels/day by 2020, which is why it is talking to the main operating companies, according to Carlos Saturnino, recently cited by the agency Bloomberg financial information.