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Angola oil production declines slightly in 2017, profits rise

28 February 2018 Comments (0) Actualites, Africa, Business, Economy, Oil

LUANDA (Reuters) – Oil production for Angola, Africa’s No. 2 crude producer, averaged 1.632 million barrels per day in 2017, down from 1.72 million barrels the previous year, the chairman of the state-run oil company Sonangol said on Wednesday.

Angola has been grappling with the effects of generally depressed oil prices on its government finances but is constrained from lifting production because it is committed to OPEC-mandated cuts.

Angola is a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and it must limit output in line with OPEC’s commitment to cut output by about 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) as part of a deal with Russia and others.

Sonagol chairman Carlos Saturnino also told a media briefing that the net profit for Sonangol, which regulates Angola’s oil sector, was $224 million in 2017 versus $81 million the previous year when oil prices were lower.

It was his first briefing since Angola President João Lourenço fired Isabel dos Santos, daughter of his presidential predecessor, from the helm of Sonangol.

Lourenço took power in September and is seeking to win credibility with international investors and shed Angola’s image as an opaque oil economy with rampant corruption.

 

(Reporting by Stephen Eisenhammer; Writing by Ed Stoddard; Editing by James Macharia)

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Angola’s Sonangol halts all asset sale talks

7 July 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – New Sonangol chief executive Isabel dos Santos has suspended all talks relating to the sale of assets belonging to the Angolan state oil firm and stripped its internal legal department of most of its powers, a statement said.

Dos Santos, the billionaire daughter of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, was appointed to the Sonangol helm last month with orders to improve the efficiency of the sprawling 40-year-old firm, the central pillar of Angola’s economy.

The statement posted on Sonangol’s website after a board meeting at the end of last month said “all processes of evaluation, negotiation and sale of any assets” had been suspended with immediate effect.

It gave no further details.

Separately, it said the board had removed the legal department’s mandate to handle anything other than disciplinary matters. Again, the statement provided no more clarity.

Isabel dos Santos told Reuters last month she planned to hive off Sonangol’s non-core assets, such as its banking, real estate and airline interests, into separate holding companies to bring the company’s focus back exclusively to oil.

Boston Consulting Group and PriceWaterhouseCoopers have been hired as external advisers to the shake-up, which has won approval from the foreign oil firms operating in Africa’s top crude producer.

Isabel dos Santos also said she intended to improve transparency at Sonangol, long been regarded as one of the most opaque institutions in Africa.

In 2011, Sonangol was accused of misplacing $32 billion in oil revenues owed to the government.

The International Monetary Fund later said it had managed to track down the missing cash, attributing the accounting discrepancy to “quasi-fiscal operations” conducted on behalf of the government.

 

(Reporting by Ed Cropley and Herculano Coroado; Editing by James Macharia)

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