AFRICAN HUB COUNTRIES SPONSORED ARTICLE
Recent trends in the Angolan oil and gas sector
Helena Prata, Sofia Cerqueira Serra and João Pedro Honorato of Angola Legal Circle Advogados (Angola) in association with Morais Leitão, Galvão Teles, Soares da Silva (Portugal) discuss recent trends in the Angolan oil and gas sector
A
ngola has gradually emerged as one of Africa’s leading economies and the revenue generated through its rich natural resources, par- ticularly oil, has played a preponderant role in the country’s de-
velopment and in the national economy. Presently, Angola vies with Nigeria as Sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest oil producer. In addition to the ex- ploration of its vast oil reserves, the country has also turned its attention to exploiting its natural gas reserves and has attracted the attention of in- ternational oil and gas companies. The following is a brief overview of re- cent activity in the oil and gas sectors and changes that have been made to the foreign exchange regime.
2013 round bid for pre-salt blocks Angola’s Ministry of Petroleum has recently announced a bid round for exploration of onshore pre-salt blocks, to take place this year. The last An- golan pre-salt round took place in 2011 and included 11 offshore blocks disputed by numerous multinational companies resulting in production sharing agreements between Sociedade Nacional de Combustível de An- gola, Empresa Pública, Sonangol, EP (‘National Concessionaire’ or ‘So- nangol’) and BP, Total, Eni and Statoil along with Cobalt Energy International (a Houston-based company) that were the winners in the limited pre-salt licensing round presaging further deep-water exploration initiatives in offshore Angola.
Angola’s regime for awarding blocks Under the Constitution of Angola, the State is the owner of all national resources within the Angolan jurisdiction. Consequently all oil fields and gas in the onshore and offshore areas of Angolan territory, in internal wa- ters, in territorial sea, in the exclusive economic zone and on the conti- nental shelf belong to the public domain of the Angolan State and exclusive mining rights are assigned to the National Concessionaire.
According to the Angolan Petroleum Act (Act 10/04, of November 12)
and the Angolan Petroleum Operations Regulation (Decree 1/09, of Jan- uary 27) oil operations (i.e., prospecting, exploration, appraisal, develop- ment and production of crude oil and natural gas) can only be exercised under a prospecting license issued by the Ministry of Petroleum, or pur- suant to an oil concession, awarded by the Government.
As to the prospecting license, any upstanding domestic or foreign com-
pany having the necessary technical and financial capacity may apply to the Ministry of Petroleum for the issue of a three-year prospecting license (exceptionally extendable at the request of the licensee) to determine the petroleum potential of a given area. The prospecting license includes ge- ological, geochemical and geophysical research, and the processing, analy- sis and interpretation of the acquired data, as well as regional studies and
mapping, for the purpose of locating oil and natural gas fields. These prospecting rights are not exclusive to the licensee, nor is the licensee granted any right of first refusal with respect to oil production in the area to which the license relates. The data derived under the license is consid- ered State property and may be used by the licensee and the National Con- cessionaire. The Ministry of Petroleum may authorise the sale of the data by the licensee, the proceeds of which is to be shared by the licensee and the National Concessionaire.
In relation to oil concessions, petroleum operations outside the scope
of a prospecting license may only be performed by the interested compa- nies if they join up with the National Concessionaire. The joint exercise
46 ENERGY & INFRASTRUCTURE | SUB SAHARAN AFRICA 2013 “
The country has also turned its attention to exploiting its natural gas reserves
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