The agreement between the parties results from a bilateral meeting between Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRCongo) in the hydrocarbon sector, which started on the 20th and ended on the night of the 21st of June, in Luanda.
According to the final communiqué of the meeting, whose delegations were headed by the respective ministers of the sector, Sonangol and Sonahydroc SA also agreed on the definition of the contractor group, which will be the same as for block 14.
Sonangol Pesquisa e Produção and Sonahydroc SA each hold a 10 percent stake in the concession, whose share of the research costs for both will be financed by the business group ("Carry") and the other members of the contractor group, according to if not communicated.
According to the note, the fiscal and legal legislation to be applied is Angolan.
The meeting in Luanda assessed the level of implementation of the Agreement on the Zone of Common Interest and the joint mechanism for the supply of petroleum products to the DRC.
Regarding the joint mechanism for the commercialization of oil derivatives, the parties decided that the proposed supply contract and the memorandum of understanding prepared will be submitted to Sonahydroc's board of directors for consideration on June 2023.
The Congolese state oil company is expected to inform Sonangol, still during the month of June, about the date for the signing of the said documents, which will take place in Kinshasa.
Sonahydroc should formalize to Sonangol the intention to acquire liquefied petroleum gas for domestic consumption.
The Ministry of Hydrocarbons of the DRC and the Ministry of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas of Angola are due to sign an agreement of understanding on July 13 next, in Kinshasa, where the next bilateral meeting is scheduled.
Angola and the DRC share a vast land, sea and river border and have maintained a dispute over oil exploration in the maritime border area for several decades, with Kinshasa claiming part of the revenues resulting from the exploration of four oil blocks that it considers to be within its jurisdiction sea and that Angola has been exploring since 2003.
The two countries signed a memorandum on common oil exploration in the waters of the lower Congo basin in June 2003, which served to create a common maritime corridor for oil exploration, in the Zone of Common Interest (ZIC).
In September last year, ministers Diamantino Azevedo (Angola) and his counterpart from the DRCongo, Didier Budimbu Ntubuanga reviewed the state of cooperation between the two countries in the field of hydrocarbons and created a technical group for the commercialization of derivatives between the two countries and another for the knowledge and exploitation of the ZIC.
The division of the concessionaire's revenues into 50 percent for each country, the definition of Chevron, operator of Block 14, as the chosen one for the ZIC, as well as the attribution to the two state-owned companies with 10 percent stakes each were some of the understandings .
