By Sully Manope
The deadline for submitting proposals for Angola’s onshore bidding round is July 22, 2014.
Africa’s second largest oil producer is offering 10 blocks spanning 10,014.6 km2 in the Lower Congo and Kwanza basins.
Three roadshows on the round have taken place in January and February of 2014, in Luanda, London and Houston, aiming to show the viability of the blocks to potential investors.
The bid round has been widely interpreted as an opportunity for local oil companies to develop capacity.
As most Angolan E&P companies do not have financial resources so they will need to partner with international oil companies. “My impression is that they will be sold mostly to Angolans and the Government expects them to look for partners”, adds Sam Ojibua, an oil and gas investment analyst covering the continent from Cairo. “This is the time to look for Angolans to partner with.”
Angolan state hydrocarbon company cum regulator Sonangol says that the onshore Kwanza basin shows a remaining potential of 10bn barrels of oil resources in the new seismic data acquired. Production-sharing contracts are to be signed with the winners on December 14, 2014.
Mr Moco as both a former Prime Minister of our coturny’s Government and Secretary General of the MPLA should be a person of a more intellectual stature for he is aware of the realities of Angola, his wishful thinking notwithstanding. When he mentions that “Corruption, nepotism and disrespect of the law are Angola’s main problems,” , he certainly knows what he is talking about, even when today pretends that birds of a feather do not pluck together. This statement he would never had it pronounced when he was roosting at same chicken hen.The others mentioned in this article, are of course expected to use the speech they was used, there is coherency in that. However, for the benefit o the doubt as far as the reader in general is concerned, and for the projection of a responsible journalism the writer in charge should have used the contradictory at least.