The information was provided to the Lusa agency by the chairman of Sonangol's board of directors, Sebastião Gaspar Martins, pointing out that "these are situations that sometimes occur in these jurisdictions".
"These are situations that sometimes occur in those jurisdictions, which should have little to do, possibly, with issues associated with payments of commissions, which may not have been paid, but once this situation is restored, the means are under our control", he said.
According to Sebastião Gaspar Martins, the aforementioned ship operated by Sonadrill, a company between Sonangol, a state-owned oil company, and the deepwater drilling company, Seadrill Limited, which provides services throughout the world to the oil industry, is already in Angola providing services in Block 15/06, with the Italian oil company ENI.
He did not advance the amount paid, but assured that port tariffs have already been settled.
Sebastião Gaspar Martins stressed that a second ship is in Namibia, for small repairs, and should return to Angola, associated with future contracts, to be established soon, by participating in tenders for long, medium, duration.
The ship "Sonangol-Quenguela" was retained in October 2019 off Tanjung Balau, a town in the south of the Malay Peninsula, and Sonangol announced that it would investigate the causes of the incident.
At the time, the Malaysian agency promised to investigate the alleged lack of documentation of the Bahamas-registered drilling vessel and stressed that this crime could be punished with a fine of 100,000 rinks ('23,800) or a prison sentence of up to two years.
Sonangol ensured that the ship had all the necessary registration and operational documentation for this type of vessel, with a crew qualified according to international standards.
