Angola’s logistics growth in the energy sector

Angola

Tiago Ferreira, country manager of TLC Angola, talks to The Energy Year about how the company’s operations are evolving in Angola’s energy sector, its strategy for growing within the oil and gas sector, its key strengths and Angola’s potential for becoming a regional logistics hub. TLC Angola provides oil and gas logistics.

How are TLC’s operations evolving in Angola’s energy sector?
We are growing our footprint in Angola. We have some projects with some of our oil and gas clients where there are increasing demands regarding the integration of different kinds of services, including warehousing, yard solutions and stock management. Our strategy is to diversify the types of services we offer.
There are five main energy projects right now in Angola, and we are very happy that we are participating, through our contractors, in all of them. We’ve been participating in RFQs [requests for quotations], and some of them have already been awarded. We are hopeful that we are going to be awarded other projects too. We definitely expect the volume of business to grow significantly in the coming years.
In Angola we are covering the full range of activities within the oil and gas sector and serve many companies along this chain. We’re involved in seismic surveying, drilling, subsea installation, offshore production and crude oil exportation and distribution. In addition, we also support the service companies who support the day-to-day operations of the oil companies. This has allowed us to handle any requests within this growing market.

What is your strategy for growing within the oil and gas sector?
We have to respond to the needs of our customers, and the trend that we’ve seen is that most of them want to externalise their logistics. This concerns not only the Customs clearing of their vessels, floating units and material but also the storage and management of stock. We have to create a solution that offers integrated logistics services.
I think this trend accompanies the mergers and acquisitions we see in our sector. The companies structure themselves to serve clients throughout the supply chain.
We also see our clients request a lot of statistics and data. They want us to provide figures on how much they spend at the terminal, the cost of storage and so forth. They increasingly ask us to make decisions regarding their logistics. I think we have to diversify in this direction to handle the supply chain for them.

What is the key strength of TLC Angola?
I don’t think that there is one competitor today in Angola that has a management team with the experience we have. Our company’s culture has allowed us to build competence and knowledge over the years, and our team is highly specialised.
For example, on our freight-forwarding team, we have some sub-teams specialised in different types of business projects. We have a team working for installation companies and another for the drilling companies. This allows us to be very close to our clients. We know their projects, how to handle specific equipment, how to treat equipment, the rigs, drillships and so on.

What is the potential for Angola to become a regional logistics hub?
There is interest from our customers in establishing Angola as a hub for regional operations. We have had some discussions with a client of ours on how to set up logistics here in Angola to distribute products for all West Africa instead of having stocks in every country along the coast.
What we would do is have everything here in Angola, and each time they need something, they can simply get it out of their stock in Angola and distribute it to Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and so on.
In fact, these developments, together with strategic projects such as the Lobito Corridor, will enable other hubs, maybe here in Luanda, for other types of projects. We are now working with the authorities and the importers to see how the administrative and legal conditions in Angola will allow us to set up that kind of hub.
Due to the position and the stability of the country, we can create a regional hub in Angola. This was not the case in the past. The main port in our region has always been Pointe-Noire, but we have the infrastructure in Angola to make it happen here. If there is political will to develop this hub, I think that we can do so.

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