Chairman of the new Angola National Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANGP), Engineer Paulino Jerónimo, has announced that the country will award over 50 exploration blocks from deep waters to shallow basins.

He made this announcement during the Angola Oil & Gas Technology Virtual Conference 2020, which held during the Angola Energy Month (AEM) from 15th – 17th December.

The Chairman of Afric Energy and Former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Nigeria, Dr Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, gave the opening address at the event. The AEM recorded over 1,200 registration, 23 hours of content, 51 speakers and 300+ questions from attendees based in four continents and 34 countries across the globe.

According to Engineer Paulino, Angola has been consistent with its production rate since 1955 and reached a production level of 2 million barrels per day in 2008, but it could not maintain the production in 2016, which led to a decline.

The Chairman said, “ANPG has been mandated to make concessions between 2019 – 2025. The agency will work towards awarding more than 50 exploration blocks from deep waters to shallow basins.”

“We have an ongoing bidding round which is active, and we are working towards the pre-announcement and the signing of the contracts. The announcement of the 2020 blocks will be released anytime from December. After 20 days, we will launch the bidding rounds for 2021 and in March, we will start reviewing the proposals and in July we will start awarding the contracts and in November, we will commence the signing of new contracts.”

“This will renew our interest on the 157 billion of barrels and 250 million cubic feet of natural gas prospect in Angola. It will also enable us to have a production of more than 1 million barrels per day. It requires an investment of $850 million and around $650 million will come from other financial sources and about $180 million will come from the agency based on our budget allocation.”

“There are also opportunities for the development of the marginal fields. Our activities include the operation of local content in the upstream segment. We have established a working group to ensure the implementation of the necessary conditions of our local content policies.”

“We will carry out activities to support the Presidential decree on local content and monitor the development plans for human resources which are approved by the ministry of human resources which has commenced since November this year.”

“There are many opportunities in Angola for the oil and gas sector. We are inviting you to invest in Angola.”

The newly created ANPG is the ministry responsible for the regulation and formulation of policies and making of specific decisions for the Angolan oil and gas sector. It also oversees the recently enacted strategy of exploration which has four main objectives. They are the availability of oil activities, segmenting the basins in Angola, expanding the geological knowledge of oil resources and execution of the strategies and authentication of exploration activities.