"We let ourselves fall asleep in the shadow of our past successes and for eight years we have had no licensing round promoting new explorations and discoveries, but that time is over," said the official, quoted in a press release from the African Energy Chamber.
"[The country] has great prospects and that will not change, what can change are the fiscal and contractual conditions, but if investors want changes, they need to tell us exactly what they want," he added, according to the statement. disclosed in the context of the African Energy Week, taking place in Cape Town, on the intervention of Belarmino Chitanguleca in the session on Angola.
The lack of licensing for prospecting new oil wells has been the main cause pointed out by analysts for the drop in oil production in Angola, which in recent years has been the target of a set of reforms aimed at making the business environment more attractive for international investors.
"The new legislation has helped to make negotiations and contractual terms more flexible," the statement said, in which Belarmino Chitangueleca "suggested that ANPG would be willing to make some concessions to investors in order to offer contractual terms more competitive".
Last year, Angola awarded nine onshore blocks, having received 46 bids from oil companies, and this year more blocks have been awarded for prospecting and exploration.
Last year, the Government approved a new Legal Regime for the Local Content of the Oil Sector to promote the diversification of the economy, the participation of national business in the oil sector, the increase in domestic production and the reduction of imports, as well as fostering creation of employment and training of the Angolan workforce affects the oil industry.
In October, ANPG published the list of services and goods supplied to oil companies that oil block operators must contract exclusively or give preference to Angolan and Angolan companies.
The measure aims to ensure the creation of an industry to support oil operations based in Angola and made up of local companies, as currently 95 percent of goods and services consumed in oil installations are provided by foreign multinationals.
Consultant Fitch Solutions last month downgraded the forecast for oil production in Angola, considering now that it will drop steadily to a million barrels a day by the end of the decade due to lack of investment and exploration.
"Angola's performance beyond the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) targets during this year and the inability to sustain positive monthly production led us to revise the forecast for oil and gas production to - 4.9 percent this year," from 1.32 million barrels in 2020 to 1.26 million barrels a day this year, write analysts at Fitch Solutions, in a note titled 'Angola continues to struggle to increase oil production'.
The lack of investment and exploration in oil wells in recent years will bring oil production down to one million barrels by 2030, they say, pointing, even so, that next year will see a rise in production, to 1.31 million barrels per day, "but this will be a short-lived increase, with production resuming the structural decline from 2023 onwards".
ANPG: Angola “slept in the shadow of success for eight years”
The executive administrator of the National Agency for Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG) admitted that the country had been "sleeping in the shadow" of successes in oil exploration for almost a decade, but assured that "that time is over".
