Angola licensing tied to elections
Angola’s next licensing round will not take place until the country
concludes its parliamentary elections in September, after which the West
African country may also try to encourage investigation on pre-salt horizons
in the wake of Brazilian discoveries on that play.
Angola began promoting its next licensing round for ultra-deep acreage last
year and was originally planning to receive bids by 13 March.
The process was postponed, however.
“The government saw that there were a number of new international oil
companies looking to get involved and felt that more time was needed for
those companies to become familiar with our objectives and the way our
system works. This process is now on hold,” said Syanga Abilio, senior
vice-president of state-owned oil company Sonangol.
Sources in Luanda have suggested that the administration of President Jose
Eduardo dos Santos was reluctant to hold the licensing process too close to
the elections to prevent the issue becoming embroiled with campaigning
topics, but Abilio did not confirm this explanation.
No elections have been held in Angola since a 1992 poll triggered a reprise
of the country’s long-running civil war, which technically ended in 2002.
Angolan Minister of Petroleum Desiderio da Graca Verissimo e Costa echoed
Abilio’s explanation but also added that the process would be resumed after
September elections.
The minister also stressed Angola’s interest in stimulating more exploration
in pre-salt horizons since Petrobras made its big discoveries on an
analogous exploration play in Brazil.
“Brazil has stimulated interest in the pre-salt play and we saw this
interest when we began promoting the acreage. We want to encourage this
process so we can investigate the pre-salt potential, and we are looking at
the best way of doing so,” Desiderio da Graca told Upstream at the Offshore
Technology Conference currently taking place in Houston in the US.
05 May 2008 19:33 GMT
| last updated:
05 May 2008 19:52 GMT
Latest jobs
