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Angola intends to replicate its maiden multi-year licensing round for oil and gas acreage from 2026, a senior government energy official said on Thursday, as the country looks to boost production and investment.
The first multi-year auction for 50 onshore and offshore blocks was for 2019-2025, as Angola strives to arrest a steep decline in crude oil production from mature oilfields.
“We have already started to work on a plan for after 2025 and are currently executing our exploration strategy which is the evaluation of different sedimentary basins of the country,” Alcides Andrade, a board member at Angola’s National Agency of Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG) said.
“It is an aggressive approach we believe we need to have,” he said, adding it was unclear at this stage how many blocks in total would be up for grabs.
Production in Africa’s second largest crude oil producer after Nigeria has stabilised at just over 1.1 million barrels a day (bpd) after reaching a peak of around 2 million bpd in 2008.
Andrade, speaking on the sidelines of an energy conference in Cape Town, said during the first four licensing rounds in the multi-year strategy, 35 concessions have been awarded thus far.
“The plan is by the end of this year to be close to 41 concessions and then next year to 50,” he said.
ANPG estimates more than $60 billion of new investment will flow over the next five years in currently producing concessions, besides “tens of billions” more from new license holders in the future, Andrade said.
(Reuters – Reporting by Wendell RoelfEditing by Ros Russell)
