In addition to the tax reduction, national companies will no longer pay the signature bonus, the non-financing of Sonangol's research expenses and will no longer be required to pay or contribute to social responsibility projects.
According to Angop, the incentive was announced this Wednesday during a clarification meeting about the basins that will be put out to public tender. At the meeting, promoted by the National Agency of Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG), it was also revealed that national companies continue to pay 30 per cent of IRP for other types of contract. Foreign companies pay 65.75 percent.
However, in order to take advantage of these incentives, national oil companies have to meet some requirements. "It is important that companies to be able to benefit from these incentives are constituted by individual or collective entities, but individuals must be anonymous and collective entities must be constituted by Angolan entities," explained the director of the business area of ANPG, Hermenegildo Buila, cited by Angop.
The oil companies should also have their accounts and tax returns updated.
According to Angop, this incentive is related to the bidding process for the Lower Congo and Kwanza Ground Blocks, specifically blocks CON1, CON5 and CON6 in the Lower Congo and blocks KON5, KON6, KON9, KON17 and KNO20 in the Lower Kwanza.
With this, the Executive wants the national oil companies to be able to compete with foreign companies. In addition, these incentives allow small and medium-sized domestic companies to enter the oil business, as investment costs are lower.
ANPG says it already has enough companies interested in making offers in the blocks in question. To do so, companies will have to pay a fee of one million dollars in order to enter the bidding process for 2020 and have access to all the information about the blocks that will be bidding.
The pre-announcement of the tender is scheduled for October 1st. However, the tender is scheduled to be launched on 29 January next year, so that in March the bids can be submitted and in June 2021 the contracts with the winning companies will be signed, Angop wrote.
