Angola aims for faster oil and gas concessions as part of new regulatory revamp

Angola intends to implement faster exploration concessions from next year as part of a new long-term hydrocarbon strategy that aims to attract investment and stimulate oil and gas production, a senior government official said on the sidelines of an energy conference in Cape Town.

Here are some details:

• The 25-year plan seeks to build on regulatory reforms that have seen oil companies, including TotalEnergies and Eni, recently commit billions of dollars to projects in Sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest oil producer after Nigeria.

• Angola intends to drop its multi-year oil and gas auction rounds and will open up more than 100 blocks, mainly onshore, as soon as the plan is passed later this year, said Alcides Andrade, a board member at the National Agency for Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG), late on Wednesday.

• He said ANPG wanted to reduce the time taken to award concessions, aiming for a three-month process versus the current six months.

• On exploration, it will not be a “one-size-fits-all” approach on terms and conditions, but rather a risk-profile-based model that distinguishes between marginal or mature fields and onshore versus deep-water blocks, for example.

• Drilling more exploration wells will hopefully lead to higher crude production over the long term, Andrade said, as Angola aims to grow its current oil output of around 1 million barrels per day.

Source: CNBCAFRICA