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Angola’s national oil company, Sonangol, signed a framework agreement with French multinational petroleum corporation TotalEnergies earlier this year to explore developing the first offshore drilling project in the Kwanza basin, an abundant and expansive oil field some 150 kilometers southwest of the country’s capital Luanda.
The provisional agreement inked in May between Sonangoal, TotalEnergies EP Angola and Agência Nacional de Petróleo, Gás e Biocombustíveis (ANPG), will pave the way for the future development of the Cameia and Golfinho oilfields, located on Blocks 20 and 21 of the Kwanza Basin.
A majority stake in the development would be owned by TotalEnergies, which already owns significant stakes in six other floating production storage and offloading facilities, also known as FPSOs, in the Angolan market. Based in Paris, TotalEnergies was estimated by Forbes to be the 21st largest company in the world in 2023.
The project is a joint venture with Sonangol, a state-owned enterprise tasked with stewardship over Angola’s vast subsurface energy reserves.
Unsurprisingly, plans for the development that have come out of the provisional agreement point to one of Sonangol’s signature initiatives in recent years: sustainability.
According to preliminary plans, the Kwanza Basin development would generate electricity from a combined cycle turbine and implement a zero-flaring policy, which would reduce the facility’s carbon emissions. This comes as Sonangol has invested heavily in new facilities and practices to both decarbonize Angola’s domestic energy industry and export to Western markets affordable green energy sources.
Sonangol is expected to complete construction next year on a new facility in Barro do Dande that will produce green ammonia, a substance that will allow Angola to efficiently export green hydrogen—a low-emission energy source—from sub-Saharan Africa to high-demand markets in Europe.
The company is undergoing a gradual process of privatisation, with the Angolan government set to sell 30 percent of the company’s equity to private investors by 2026. – Business Insider Africa
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