Sonangol invites bidders for 10 onshore blocks

LUANDA, July 20, 2015 – Angola’s state-owned Sonangol has invited bidders to participate in a new round of licensing for 10 onshore blocks. Pre-qualified companies or consortia of those companies are eligible to submit proposals, which are due by September 18, 2015. Contracts will be awarded on a production-sharing model.

The blocks being offered are KON 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 17 in the onshore Kwanza Basin, and CON 1, 5 and 6 in the onshore Baixo Congo Basin. In 2014, Sonangol announced that the blocks hold, on average, 700,000 barrels of oil each. Angola’s total reserves are estimated at 13 billion barrels of oil.

Companies pre-qualified to be operators include Chevron, Austria’s OMV, Italy’s Eni, Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol, Galp Energy of Portugal, Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Petroleum, Anglo-Irish independent Tullow Oil, London-based Dragon Oil, UK player Sterling Energy and mining major Glencore. Among the companies pre-qualified to be non-operators are Brazil’s state-owned Petrobas, Danish upstream firm Maersk Oil and Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi.

The move by Sonangol to expand Angola’s onshore exploration potential comes as low oil prices threaten the viability of the offshore sector. Offshore currently accounts for all of the country’s crude output of 1.7 million barrels per day.

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