Angola’s Sonamet delivers on subsea fabrication demand

Angola

Domingos Augusto, CEO of Sonamet, talks to The Energy Year about the company’s performance in 2023, its key projects for 2024, the challenges of the Agogo project and how it plans to successfully deliver on its Agogo contract despite the project’s tight schedule. Sonamet is an Angolan fabricator of structures for oil and gasfields.

How do you assess Sonamet’s performance in 2023?
2023 was a very busy year. We have been involved in a number of important projects. One of the major ones we delivered was Chevron’s SLGC [Sanha Lean Gas Connection] project, which comprises four main structures, a gas platform, a booster compressor module jacket and bridge, plus the flare. No one has ever built a module with a booster compressor in Angola.
The most important thing to take away from 2023 is that we managed to increase our workforce from a very low number all the way to close to 1,000 employees. In 2013, Sonamet had 2,500 employees and deployed 3.25 million man-hours. This was at the peak of our industry. Since then, things have gradually declined. We got to a point post-Covid where our workforce comprised not more than 400 people, but we have managed to ramp up.
2024 is going to be a tight year for Sonamet. By the early second half of 2025, we have to deliver the Agogo project to the clients. It’s going to be very tight, but Sonamet has the infrastructure to deliver.

What are the key projects that will keep Sonamet busy in 2024?
In 2023 some very important contracts came to fruition, especially the ones in Agogo. We signed the Agogo FPSO modules contract with Yinson, for example. This was followed by signing the subsea production systems Agogo contract with Baker Hughes, which is by far the largest contract we signed in 2023 and which will consume most of the hours in the yard during 2024.
Finally, we also signed a contract for the Agogo SURF Phase 2 project with TechnipFMC and Agogo transport and installation with Subsea7.
Following our success and involvement with the Agogo project, we will be in a very good position to participate significantly in Ndungu, bringing synergies from Agogo projects and a very experienced workforce.

How well equipped is Sonamet for taking on the Agogo project on such a tight schedule?
The reason why we secured so much work on the Agogo project is because we have the largest facility for subsea projects in Angola. Subsea projects will fully utilise our super duplex workshops.
In order to deliver a large campaign such as Agogo, which consists of 10 manifolds, you cannot have just one white workshop. You need several because of the sequence of fabrication and the number of structures. We have four. Most companies – even throughout Africa – have only one or two. We invested a lot in these because we knew that the future would bring more large projects.
All these subsea projects will have large campaigns. Similarly in the past, for Block 32 Kaombo, we fabricated nine manifolds. The Ndungu project will also require the construction of additional subsea production systems.

What do you think will be the main challenges in delivering the Agogo project successfully?
Challenges are more on our client side. We understand that the industry is struggling with procurement at the moment. The procurement of steel and other company-provided items is a challenge for our clients. We understand that this will put a bit of pressure on the schedule because of the global political and economic context at the moment. There’s high demand for steel because of the war in Ukraine, the situation in Gaza and so on. All this puts extra strain on the industry.
On our side, one of the challenges is the devaluation of the kwanza and the difficulty of transferring money outside the country. This is a huge, huge challenge. We pay for more than just fabrication aids. We have to do our own procurement for equipment, maintenance and so on. All this is a challenge for us, and not only for us but for everyone. We have to plan ahead and have contingency plans for these issues.

How strategic is the inauguration of Sonamet’s new spool base?
Our investment in our spool base, which was inaugurated in early 2024, is one of our most strategic decisions regarding our growth. The main client for this base is TotalEnergies, for the CLOV project. This base is designed to serve and feed some of the projects that are in the pipeline with TotalEnergies and Azule Energy.
The utilisation rate of the spool base will really depend on the architecture and engineering design demanded by our clients, but we have studied the market, and we know that our spool base will reach a significant utilisation rate. We knew that the CLOV project, for example, would need this base. If we didn’t have one, part of the work would have to be done offshore.
It’s an important additional resource for the country. It is certainly unique, not just for Angola but for West Africa as a whole.

Does the new spool base have the capacity to serve projects in the region?
Along with the other facilities that we have, our new spool base can certainly serve projects in other countries in the future. Countries such as Namibia, the Republic of Congo and surrounding areas that are in the oil and gas industry I’m sure will have a need for it.
It’s the same with our training school. We are currently negotiating to train a number of Namibian welders and pipe-fitters at our school. We’ve been doing such training for quite some time. We understand that they’re very new to the oil and gas industry, so the training would be helpful to them. We can train more than 100 welders and pipe-fitters for the market. However, we’re not fully utilising the school at the moment because we haven’t had enough demand for it.

What are your main takeaways from the SLGC project for Chevron?
SLGC was a consortium between us and Subsea7. It was a full EPCI project, where Subsea7 took care of the engineering, procurement and installation. We were responsible for the construction.
Offshore shallow-water projects for us are the easiest ones to do, and they typically include the construction of platforms and jackets. The SLGC platform is extremely complex and involves a number of disciplines, such as electrical instrumentation and tests and all the associated painting – the latter of which is managed by us but not executed by us.
We’ve built our company based on projects such as these. We started with shallow-water projects, especially on Block 0 and Block 14, and we grew since then with a lot of investment made by Chevron. They’ve invested a lot in us to help us grow because these projects occupy a large surface area in the yard.
We know Chevron has many projects in the pipeline that could come to us. There were challenges with SLGC, especially from an engineering and procurement perspective. However, we worked collaboratively with them. They helped us. Obviously things were not delivered as per the time agreed upon because of all these challenges, but today, the SLGC platform is on the way to being installed. It’s at least out of our hands.

How is Sonamet planning to grow along with the Angolan oil and gas industry in the years to come?
There are many opportunities and new licensing rounds, and these give us some perspective on where the industry is going. Moreover, we know that it takes a couple of years from the moment there is an exploration opportunity in the field to the moment the project comes to us. Consequently, we plan our future during these gaps of time.
Our goal is to always cover these gaps in work that we have, and this is why we want to look at other markets and different industries. However, the prospects are good. We see many new projects happening.
Other projects that are of particular interest to everyone (and they have to happen at some point) are the decommissioning, plug and abandonment works. We’ve been trialled and tested by Chevron. Over the last few years, we helped them decommission a few buoys.

How has Sonamet changed the Angolan construction and fabrication industry in its 25 years of existence?
We pioneered this industry. Sonamet built the first FPSO module constructed in Angola, the first reeling and the first manifold. This is how we have changed the landscape. We’ve helped the industry grow.
However, the greatest achievement of Sonamet is that we’ve managed – from 1998 until now – to train many Angolans that have demonstrably excelled in the industry. Some of them are still with us, and some are spread across the industry. They have very good experience in fabrication and have been involved in many such projects. Some of them have reached very high positions.
During Covid, we were afraid that we would lose that pool of talent, so we took an executive decision at our own cost to keep them with us and keep them as busy as we could. These Angolans have remained here. This is our greatest achievement, and it is something we’re very proud of.

What does the Sonamet of the future look like?
We are obviously very well certified for the industry, and as we become more active in general – as well as in other industries and in the decommissioning campaigns – we’re looking for anything additional that would certify us and prepare us in terms of investment.
We don’t want to limit ourselves to Angola. We want our neighbouring countries to look at us and give us an opportunity to collaborate with them. Namibia has been very approachable and very interested in what we do. Namibian authorities visited us a couple of times. Our shareholders are building bridges between us, and I think this collaboration between Namibia and Angola represents the future.
Environmentally speaking, we are very careful these days, much more than we were a couple of years ago. I believe it’s a trend in the industry. We have a very strong environmental team. We operate in a very sensitive area. We are in the sheltered bay of Lobito. Lobito is a region that accommodates and protects flamingos, the huge migration of flamingos.
We’ve done a great job over these years, and we are training our people to have everyone commit themselves to environmental concerns, not only for us but also for the surrounding communities that we have in the region. We’re a very well respected company because of that. We don’t damage the environment. We respect it, and we directly help the communities.
The employment that Sonamet provides in the region makes a huge impact. We are the only private company operating at a large scale in the Lobito area, and our commitment to the region is ingrained in our DNA and always will be.

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