universo25

Universo MARCH 2010

Job done

Angolan oil minister JosĂŠ Botelho de Vasconcelos ends his year as Opec president at the first ever Opec summit in Luanda

100m years BC Fabulous fossils found High life Luxury skyscrapers in Luanda

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Universo is the international magazine of Sonangol Board Members Manuel Vicente (President), Anabela Fonseca, Mateus de Brito, Fernando Roberto, Francisco de Lemos

Sonangol Department for Communication & Image Director João Rosa Santos

Corporate Communications Assistants

Sheila O’Callaghan

Editor

Alex Bellos

Art Director David Gould

Sub Editor Ron Gribble

Advertising Design Bernd Wojtczack

Circulation Manager Matthew Alexander

Project Consultants Nathalie MacCarthy Mauro Perillo

Group President

John Charles Gasser Universo is produced by Impact Media Custom Publishing. The views expressed in the publication are not necessarily those of Sonangol or the publishers. Reproduction in whole or in part without prior permission is prohibited.

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2 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

A

s we enter the second decade of the new century it is worth looking at how Angola has transformed over the past decade. The country has just organized the two highest-profile events that have ever taken place within its borders. Both are from different spheres, but together they show just how far the country has come.

The first event to take place was the annual end-of-year summit of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), which was held in Luanda’s new Talatona Convention Center. Angola was the venue because it held the Opec presidency in 2009, and the president traditionally hosts the end-of-year summit.

The second event was the Africa Cup of Nations. The football tournament required Angola to build four brand new stadiums, open many hotels and upgrade its transport infrastructure. Even though Angola was knocked out in the quarterfinals, the country kept on cheering until the final whistle blew.

But Angola’s newfound confidence and aspiration can be seen not just by looking at the stadiums or the new convention centre: any visitor to Luanda can see in the skyline a country that is looking towards the future. We also have a report about the growing construction industry, which is bringing homes to the people.

Angola is unrecognisable from what it was only ten years ago: it’s exciting to think how much further it will develop in the years to come.

AFP/Getty Images

Publisher

Letter from the editor

20

Octávio Mateus

Nadiejda Santos, Lúcio Santos, Cristina Novaes, José Mota, Beatriz Silva, Paula Almeida, Sandra Teixeira, Marta Sousa

4

Angola news briefing International Monetary Fund approves $1.4 billion loan; National Bank of Angola and Unitel study ways to enable bank transactions via mobile phones; President José Eduardo dos Santos addresses MPLA congress; Yuri da Cunha becomes first Angolan artist to sign contract with Sony; TAAG begins flights to Cape Town and Havana; Angola plans science and technology museum; Standard Bank of South Africa to operate in Angola

5

Figured out A snapshot of Angola in numbers

CONTENTS

6

Sarah Monaghan

26

Escom

AFP/Getty Images

34

6

16 A winning spectacle

Rising again A special report into the housing sector in Luanda, which is growing again after the slowdown in 2009. New buildings for high-end customers and for the emerging middle classes are being built

The Africa Cup of Nations in Angola was won by Egypt, while the host nation put on an amazing show

20 Monsters of the deep Angola is a gold mine of prehistoric fossils, and even has a species named after it: the Angolasaurus.

We speak to the palaeontologists digging up the past

14 Homes for workers The Sonangol co-operative Cajueiro is building houses for its employees all over the country

26 In splendid isolation

32 Sonangol

news briefing

34 A day to remember A report of the Opec end-of-year summit that took place in Luanda

48 Oil for sale An interview with Lucinda Guimarães

50 The Big Picture Three Angolan trees

Sonangol

Universo travels to the beautiful islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola’s closest cultural neighbour, which is expanding its tourism industry

Sonangol News

MARCH 2010 3

Angola news briefing Call to account President José Eduardo dos Santos has called for “zero tolerance” on corruption in a bid to halt what he has called the “squandering of resources”. Speaking to members of the MPLA central committee just before the party’s sixth congress, the president said the party had been “timid” in holding things to account through the courts and parliament, and that this had been “exploited by irresponsible people and those of bad faith”.

Dos Santos was re-elected as president of the MPLA after winning the vote during the congress which was held in Luanda in December and attended by more than 2,000 party members.

Mobile banking

AFP/Getty Images

The National Bank of Angola (BNA) is studying ways to work with mobile-phone operator Unitel to allow people to make payments through their mobiles. There are plans for customers to be able to access their bank accounts through their phones and make payments to government organisations. António André Lopes, administrator of BNA, said: “We hope that the system of paying through a mobile phone will offer a greater convenience to the client.”

The International Monetary Fund has approved financial funding for Angola worth around $1.4 billion. The loan aims to help the country cope with the effects of the global economic crisis and the drop in liquidity, due largely to lower oil prices. The terms of the deal also include a reform agenda aimed at medium-term structural issues to foster growth in the non-oil sector.

Following approval of the arrangement with Angola, Takatoshi Kato, IMF deputy managing director, said: “The Angolan authorities are to be commended for their strong commitment to a comprehensive reform programme

4 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

that addresses the macroeconomic imbalances which emerged in the face of the global economic crisis. The programme includes a determined effort to restrain public expenditure, while providing adequate resources for social spending and vital infrastructure projects.”

In addition, the World Bank has opened a credit line worth $30 million to boost agriculture in Angola. The financing will support 120,000 small producers in the provinces of Bié, Huambo and Malanje by giving them technical assistance to improve their yields and boost the rural economy.

Takatoshi Kato

Getty Images

IMF loan approved

Figured out

2000

Global star Popular singer Yuri da Cunha has become the first Angolan artist to sign a contract with Sony Music. The deal was sealed in Milan, Italy, and will last for six years. There are plans for a ‘Best of’ album, a possible collaboration with Italian star Eros Ramazzotti and the international marketing of his music. Da Cunha’s third and most recent album Kuma Kua Kié featured music from a range of styles including semba, kizomba and zouk.

dream-magazine.it

number of jobs set to be created by the Angola LNG project in Soyo

The Boeing Company

Good science

More destinations Angola’s national carrier TAAG has begun direct flights to Cape Town in South Africa and the Cuban capital Havana. It will fly twice a week to Cape Town, the first direct service to the coastal city from Luanda. The flights are likely to be popular with Angolans and expats, especially those travelling to the World Cup in June. The Havana flight will help transport the thousands of Cuban teachers and doctors who are currently working in Angola and will be a useful link for Angolan students who are attending universities in Cuba. Online tickets are now available from the airline’s new website – www.taag.com – which also offers online check-in facilities and flight timetables.

LAM of Mozambique has joined the growing list of international carriers serving Angola with twice-weekly flights between Luanda and Maputo. Kenya Airways and Royal Air Maroc (RAM) have also expressed an interest in flying directly to Luanda.

Angola is planning a science and technology museum for Luanda and three technology parks in the provinces of Uíge, Huambo and Luanda. Maria Cândida Teixeira, the Minister of Science and Technology, said the idea was to invest in science and research and boost the country’s academic facilities: “We continue to strengthen ties with all the scientists of different research areas.” The plan puts an emphasis on education and training, she added, as well as supporting the public and private institutions of the various branches of scientific knowledge.

Now in Portuguese A Portuguese translation of the 1971 book Angola, written by Professor Douglas Wheeler of the University of New Hampshire, has just been published in Lisbon by Tinta-da-China.

The translation has new material including an updated historical chronology, bibliographies and an essay outlining Angola’s history from 1971 to 2009.

New bank South Africa’s largest bank, Standard Bank, is to begin operating in Angola in 2010. The bank, which has a representative office in Luanda, had been given the green light from the Council of Ministers to start business in the country. Clive Tasker, chief executive of Standard Bank Africa, said that the firm planned to open a full service bank in Angola with an emphasis on corporate and investment banking.

$36billion

value of the Angolan government’s 2010/11 budget

8.6

per cent estimate for Angola’s GFP growth (global facilitation partnership for transportation and trade) in 2010

628,526 tonnes

amount of cement imported into Angola during the second quarter of 2009

7%

Angola’s consumption of the total African beer market

1,500

number of foreign journalists who applied for accreditation to cover the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola

MARCH 2010 5

RISING AGAIN PROPERTY

After the boom of 2008 came the slowdown in 2009. But in 2010 the construction industry is back on track. Homes are being built across Angola for those on high, middle and low incomes ➔

Sunset strip: an artist’s impression of Luanda’s bay from the Sky Center Condominium 6 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Escom

MARCH 2010 7

PROPERTY

F

Viewpoint: Pontes on the roof of the ESCOM building

Kamene M Traça

rom his office in Luanda’s tallest building, José Walter Pontes’ view across the city centre is spectacular.

Inside, it is also pretty amazing: his ultramodern, window-lined office is furnished with black, white and chrome fittings.

“With this building we wanted to bring First World quality to Luanda,” said Pontes, general manager of ESCOM Imobiliária, the company that built the 102m-high ESCOM building. “I started with this project from the very bottom and now it is finished I am privileged to be here on the 16th floor.”

At the very top, the building has smart penthouses. In the middle there are offices and at ground level a dramatic entrance area with floor-to-ceiling modern art and a cluster of boutique shops. It has already become a landmark on Luanda’s skyline and is the first of a total of four towers which will eventually make up the Sky Center Condominium.

But it is not just luxury building that Angola is seeing. Construction of homes for middle and low-income families is also taking place all over the country, including a Sonangol project that has built more than 3,000 houses (see p14).

The Sky Center Condominuim, however, is the most visible of all the projects.

One of its towers, Sky Residence I, will have 76 apartments, three penthouses, underground parking, a shopping area, a swimming pool, squash courts and a gym.

Another tower, Sky Residence II, will have 22 floors and 62 apartments. Sky Business (20 floors of office space) will be part of the same building linked by an underground shopping mall, a food court and a parking area.

Fantastic four: The Sky Center Condominium will eventually look like this

With many of these apartments on the market at over $1 million they are certainly not run-of-th- mill purchases. Yet, according to Pontes, 25 per cent of Sky Residence has already been sold before a single brick has been laid. In addition, all of the Sky Business offices have been leased, he said, proving that despite the financial slowdown of 2009 there is still plenty of life in the Angolan economy.

Pontes said this with relief since it has been a tough ride for Angola over the 8 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Escom

Squeeze

Kamene M Traรงa

Tall order: the ESCOM building is, at 102m, the highest in Luanda

MARCH 2010 9

Vito Palmisano

“

We believe that the first quarter of 2010 will start to be more favourable to the property market

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José Walter Pontes

”

Odebrecht Catalog/Database

PROPERTY

Riviera Atlântico, a condominium in Luanda Sul built by Odebrecht

In a bid to meet this demand, ESCOM has just signed a deal with Mota-Engil and Fundação Lar do Patriota for a $1.5 billion development covering 80 hectares in the south of Luanda providing affordable family homes. The location is key to decentralising Luanda, which is overcrowded and under-resourced.

New roads “We are trying to decentralise,” said Pontes.

“We have good new roads now around the city, especially the route which goes from Benfica to Cacuaco. This is encouraging

developers to build further outside of Luanda because people want and need that space which we don’t have in the centre.”

Working on a smaller scale but in a similar vein is Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht – the company behind many of the new gated condominiums which have sprung up in Talatona in recent years but are out of reach of many Angolans.

Odebrecht’s Monte Belo development has been part funded by Chevron’s Angolan operating arm, Cabinda Gulf Oil Company, and will have 100 homes for employees.

An Odebrecht spokeswoman said

The Torres Atlântico on the Marginal has office and residential space

Kamene M Traça

past year following the fall in oil prices, a tumble in international foreign reserves and a subsequent squeeze on the US dollar.

After initial GDP growth predictions for 2009 of 11.8 per cent, Angola grew by only 1.3 per cent, a sharp decline on the previous four years of double-digit growth.

As well as less money being available in the state coffers, a number of the construction projects which began in 2008 suddenly seemed more ambitious than ever. “Without doubt there were some difficulties during 2009 as we saw a retraction of international money and a slowdown within the Angolan market,” said Pontes. “We believe that the first quarter of 2010 will start to be more favourable to the property market.”

With the upmarket apartments covered by projects such as the Sky Center, and the Torres Atlântico, which opened in December, Pontes said that there had been a shift in priority towards affordable family homes for the country’s emerging middle class. The giant advertising billboards around Luanda are still advertising property, but the focus has moved from luxury to family living.

Now, the new targets for construction companies are Angolans who are well-educated and earning decent salaries but are crammed into tiny city-centre apartments.

MARCH 2010 11

PROPERTY

“

The government may even succeed in building more than one million homes by 2012 because the current rate of construction is going so well

that there were plans to develop partnerships with more oil companies and banks to help facilitate loans for workers to be able to afford their own houses.

Affordable housing The private companies are not working on this alone – providing affordable housing is central to the government’s national plan.

President José Eduardo dos Santos pledged during the run-up to the 2008 legislative elections to build one million homes by 2012.

He repeated this promise last year at the first national housing conference and said the country’s housing problem was one of its biggest. The president said too many people were living in “a chaotic and disorganised way without the necessary infrastructures. This is a very serious problem and in the long term could lead to social instability.”

Establishing the National Homes Commission, dos Santos called for greater

Pictures: Odebrecht Catalog/Database

Monte Belo

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”

José Ferreira, Minister of Urbanisation and Housing

regulation of the housing market and prices, in part through a reduction in the cost of construction materials, and there was talk of creating a fund to help low-income families get on the property ladder.

A number of public-private partnerships has been started and building has begun in many parts of the country. In December, José Ferreira, Minister of Urbanisation and Housing, told local media: “The government may even succeed in building more than one million homes by 2012 because the current rate of construction is going so well.”

He said that the first homes under the scheme could be handed over in the first quarter of 2010 and that 89,000 hectares of land had already been allocated for lowcost housing schemes. This strategy is working hand-in-hand with the government’s long-term plans to “requalify” large swathes of Luanda which have degenerated into slums due to overcrowding.

One thing that unites those at the bot-

tom of the property sector with those at the top is the battle against the high cost of construction materials. Importing these items pushes up costs and adds time to construction projects.

New cement factories are starting to open and, in time, this will reduce the cost of imports which come mostly from China.

The government has also announced that construction materials imported into the country for social housing projects are to be exempt from customs duties.

Good future As well as basic construction materials, there are also plans to import self-build home-construction kits for people to buy for a one-off price and then build a house themselves once they have secured a plot of land. Allocation of land plots is under way in big cities and an effort is being made to organise what has previously been an unregulated system.

As the cement begins to set in Angola’s property market, economically the next 12 months look to be steadier for the country too. This is partly thanks to oil prices being back at around the $70 a barrel mark, but the situation has also been boosted by a $1.4 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. This will help resolve the country’s liquidity problems and, in the longer term, stabilise the kwanza.

The shock to the economy caused by the fall in oil prices triggered the government to channel more investment into the non-oil sector. As well as reducing dependence on oil, this investment into agriculture and industry should eventually reduce the need for imports and bring down costs.

With so many people still in need of quality housing and with so much space in which to build, Angola’s property market looks to have a good future, and in many ways remains central to the country’s development.

The condominium, Atl창ntico Sul, (this picture and below), offers luxury living in south Luanda

MARCH 2010 13

PROPERTY

Luanda

Sonangol

Lobito

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PROPERTY

HOMES FOR WORKERS

C

ajueiro is a Sonangol co-operative that has already built over 3,000 houses for employees working for Sonangol and the Ministry of Oil. “It is the biggest social project in Angola,” said Carlos da Cunha, Cajueiro’s president.

Cajueiro was created in 2000 in order to enable oil-industry workers to have their own homes, which were out of reach on the open market because of the high cost of real estate in Angola.

The co-op buys pieces of land and builds condominiums.

The apartments are then sold to Cajueiro members at building cost only. Sonangol employees receive another discount of 40 per cent of the price of their homes from their employer. Cajueiro members are also allowed to pay for their apartments over a period of ten years.

Any employee of either Sonangol or the oil ministry may apply to join Cajueiro. Once accepted, they pay a subscription fee for two years of $50 to $200 a month, depending on the house they are applying for. After this period, the members are put on a waiting list. As soon as a house is available, the member buys it, and the subscription fee is deducted from the sale price.

“We have members interested in the top-quality houses, but we build more low-category to middle-category houses,” said da Cunha. The co-op does not get any money from the state, but it is helped by the local authorities, which sometimes donate pieces of land. “It is very helpful to us and it is great for their towns as well: not only do we build houses, we also build roads.”

Most of the houses that are already occupied are situated in Luanda, but there are also 121 inhabited houses in Soyo, about 100 in Lobito and another 61 in Namibe. By 2012, there should be settlements in Malanje, Lubango and Porto Amboim, and Cabinda.

In Luanda, there are three price ranges, depending on the type of house and the area. The current value of a 90 sq m lowcategory house with a yard in the popular area of Viana, in the Cajueiro Velho condominium, which was bought for $17,500 at the beginning of the project, would now be worth about $200,000 on the open market.

Ana Maria, a Sonangol employee, has been living in the Gepa condominium situated in Samba, in Luanda’s southern suburban zone, since 2002. She bought a three-bedroom house, with two bathrooms, for $37,000. “We always have water, and power as well, thanks to the generators. And it is safe, of course.”

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MARCH 2010 15

Cracker: Fireworks light up the sky during the opening ceremony

Hat trick: The Egyptian team celebrates winning the final 1-0 against Ghana, their third successive Cup victory

16 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

CUP OF NATIONS

A WINNING

SPECTACLE A football frenzy of singing, dancing, fireworks and hugging each other with joy was how Angolans celebrated their successful hosting of the Africa Cup of Nations

All pictures: AFP/Getty Images

I

t was four years in the preparation and expectations were extremely high, but Angola’s Africa Cup of Nations did not disappoint and was a true Festa de Futebol.

Even though Egypt may have won the title – beating Ghana in the final 1-0 to lift their third Cup of Nations trophy in a row – for many Angola was the true winner for hosting such a successful tournament.

The competition began with a spectacular opening ceremony of fireworks, music and dancing played out to a full capacity crowd of 50,000 at Luanda’s modern 11th of November super stadium. The opening game also proved to be a worthy spectacle, although it was less than pleasing for Angolan fans who saw their 4-0 lead over Mali frittered away in the final 11 minutes to 4-4.

Victory

Horn of Africa: Palanquinha, or Little Antelope, was the tournament mascot

A few days later, a decisive 2-0 victory against Malawi propelled the Palancas Negras, as the Angolan team is known, to the top of their group and triggered unprecedented scenes of partying as thousands ran out into the streets screaming and cheering, jumping on cars and taxis and hugging each other with joy.

Even more red, black and gold Angolan flags were tied to cars and balconies as the whole country got caught up in a football frenzy, making as much noise as possible with plastic trumpets and whistles. Elsewhere, at the other three stadiums in Benguela, Cabinda and Lubango, some unexpected results in the group stages MARCH 2010 17

– including Gabon beating Cameroon, and Ivory Coast drawing with Burkina Faso – kept people on the edges of their seats and made for an interesting quarter final round of Angola v Ghana, Ivory Coast v Algeria, Egypt v Cameroon and Zambia v Nigeria.

Cameroon and Ivory Coast – the teams with the most stars from European and Premiership clubs – were the surprise losers, along with Angola, who could not find the back of the net during their quarterfinal and went out to a young but feisty Ghanaian side which beat them 1-0.

The Palancas Negras defeat plunged the country into a 24-hour depression, and the tears running down the faces of the players as they left the stadium to face the glare of the world’s media summed up how everyone felt.

Captain Kali, who came close to equalising in the second-half injury time, told reporters after the game: “We wanted to win so badly. It was good to be in the 18 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

quarterfinals. At the end of the day, the only difference between us and them was that they scored – we did not.”

Gusto But despite Angola being out, there was plenty of quality football still to be played.

The government appealed to the Angolan people to pick themselves up and get behind the remaining teams, which they did with gusto, almost filling the stadiums and creating lively atmospheres for the semifinals and finals.

The January 8 attack in Cabinda, which killed two members of the Togolese football delegation, cast a shadow over the start of the tournament and elicited unwanted headlines around the world for Angola. A splinter group of the guerrilla organisation Flec (Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda) claimed responsibility for the shooting, and now the Angolan government is working with France, where a number of

Flec leaders live in exile, to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Condemning the attack in his speech at the opening ceremony, President José Eduardo dos Santos called for the games to continue in Cabinda – and Angolans showed their natural resilience by looking forward, enjoying the football and not allowing the shooting to detract from the tournament.

Egypt, despite coming to the tournament off the back of being knocked out of this year’s World Cup by regional rival Algeria, looked strong from the start and won all their games convincingly, only conceding two goals.

The Egypt v Ghana final was not the most action-packed game of football, but one goal was all Egypt needed to seal their glory and win the trophy for a record seventh time.

Ghana did well to be runners up since they were missing their three best players –

Michael Essien, Stephen Appiah and Sulley Muntari – and fielded eight of last year’s under-20 World Cup-winning side.

Dramatic The final, like the opening match, was played to a full house at the stadium in Luanda and it was followed by a dramatic and colourful closing ceremony with music, acrobatics and fireworks. The gold Cup of Nations trophy was flown onto the pitch by a jet-propelled rocket man in a silver space suit, and President dos Santos presented the winning team with their medals.

The scenes of jubilation among the Egyptian players and their fans were shared by the Angolan organisers, the tens of thousands of staff and volunteers who made the tournament happen, and the Angolan people. “It’s been like a party for our country. It’s the first time that we organised a championship like this and it has made the Angolan people very happy,” insurance

worker José Rodrigues, 45, told Universo.

“It has also been useful and beautiful for our football and it will help develop our future players,” he said. “We may have lost this time, but in the next two years we will do better.”

As well as the four new super stadiums in Luanda, Benguela, Cabinda and Lubango, which cost $600 million, a further $400 million was spent on rebuilding airports, laying new roads and upgrading hospitals. Thanks to the Cup of Nations, Angola also now has a host of new hotels, a private taxi system and a reinforced telecommunications network.

Cândido Carneiro, a Luandan busi-

nessman who runs Trevgol tour company, said: “I don’t have any doubt whatsoever that the results on Angola’s economy are positive from the point of view of the infrastructures that we have gained, not just the four stadiums built from scratch, but also the other stadiums which were rehabilitated.”

He admitted that due to high prices not as many tourists as had been hoped had made it to Angola, but he said that the investment made now will pay off in the longer term. An increase in supply means hotel prices will eventually come down and make the country more attractive. “It’s like a snowball effect,” he said.

Clockwise from left: Angola’s Flávio reacts during the quarterfinal match between Angola and Ghana; an Angolan fan holds up a banner for Haiti; Samuel Eto’o and Mohamadou Idrissou of Cameroon celebrate after scoring a goal against Zambia during their group stage match; Burkina Faso fan watches the match between Ghana and Burkina Faso; Egyptian players celebrate with the trophy during the award ceremony after beating Ghana; Egyptian fans cheer for their national team in the Ombaka stadium in Benguela

MARCH 2010 19

DINOSAURS

MONSTERS

OF THE DEEP The marine reptile Angolasaurus is just one of the many prehistoric species found in Angola âž”

20 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Hillsman S. Jackson

Head in the sand: the skull of an Angolasaurus

MARCH 2010 21

DINOSAURS

A

ngola, like many African countries, has an abundance of natural resources. But as well as its oil, diamonds, iron ore and copper, Angola is also rich in fossils. According to researchers, it is “a museum in the ground” waiting to be explored.

Angola’s fossil wealth was first noticed by the Portuguese in the 1960s but only now are palaeontologists making remarkable discoveries. Dr Octávio Mateus of the New University of Lisbon is full of enthusiasm for Angola’s underground potential.

“Angola is just amazing for fossils,” he said. “We have found a lot of places which are the best in the world in terms of fossils, and we keep finding new fossilised animals so it’s very exciting. Angola is a museum in the ground with lots to be seen.”

Dr Mateus is a lead member of PaleoAngola, a group of researchers from Portugal, Angola, the United States and the Netherlands, who have been digging for fossils in Angola. PaleoAngola senior team member Dr Louis Jacobs of Dallas’ Southern Methodist University describes Angola as the “final frontier for palaeontology”.

“Due to the war, there has been little research carried out so far, but now we are getting in finally and there is so much to find,” he said. “In some areas there are literally fossils sticking out of the rocks.”

Rui Castanhinha of the New University of Lisbon

Wiped out The team’s biggest find was in 2005 when Dr Mateus uncovered five bones from the front left leg of a sauropod dinosaur on the coast in Bengo province, just north of Luanda. Since then, the majority of the skulls and skeletons uncovered by the team, which has focused on coastal areas in Namibe and Bengo provinces, has been from turtles, sharks, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs.

Plesiosaurs and mosasaurs – of which the Angolasaurus is a species – are marine reptiles that lived at the same time as dinosaurs, which are believed to have been wiped out when an asteroid hit Earth 65 million years ago.

The PaleoAngola team is planning to return to Angola this July and continue to focus on the coast, but with a view to going further back to the Triassic period, 200 million years ago.

Dr Mateus said: “There have been a number of fish found

Dr Octávio Mateus, of the New University of Lisbon 22 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Anne Schulp

“

We have found places which are the best in the world in terms of fossils, and we keep finding new animals, so it’s very exciting. Angola is a museum in the ground with lots to be seen

Anne Schulp Octรกvio Mateus

Dr Octรกvio Mateus

MARCH 2010 23

Artist’s impression of a larger plesiosaur catching a small one.

The plesiosaurs were marine reptiles that lived contemporaneously to the dinosaurs, who lived on land. Plesiosaur fossils have been discovered in Angola Image: Natural History Museum, University of Oslo/Handout/Reuters/Corbis

24 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

DINOSAURS

Oil and dinosaurs – a connection?

The abundance of fossils in Angola, particularly those of large oceanbased predators, demonstrates that the sea along the ancient coast of Angola was productive 90-95 million years ago when the creatures were alive.

Angolan waters are also productive today, with the Benguela current sweeping cold nutrientenriched waters up the west coast of Africa from the southern Atlantic.

However, the Benguela current is only about six million years old. The explanation for the productivity of the waters when the fossils were alive lies in the Earth’s climatic zones and the geographic position of the African

continent at the time.

Oil and gas were formed over millions of years by the decay of organic material and increases in pressure and temperature through compression of layer upon layer of sediment.

Being able to track regions of high organic productivity in areas where dinosaurs and mosasaurs once lived, and the geological context of the fossils found, helps geologists understand the ancient oceans’ currents and the movement of continents.

This in turn gives clues to the history of petroleum-source rocks, where we can today drill to find crude oil and gas.

from this period, but so far no vertebrates or dinosaurs. The fish that have been discovered were seen by geologists who were mapping the area for minerals and they weren’t so interested in the fossils and didn’t study them very much.

“What we want to do is revisit the areas where the geologists have been, but with a palaeontologist’s eye, to see what the fossils can tell us. We don’t know if we will find anything or not, but Angola keeps surprising us so we hope it stays that way.”

Much of Angola’s fossil richness is down to a series of latitude shifts tens of millions of years ago which saw the land move through desert and tropical zones. Today, the country remains tropical in the north at its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo and arid desert in the south where it meets Namibia.

Part of the drive for recovering fossils is to find out more about continental shifts and to try to get a more exact date of when South America split from Africa and the southern Atlantic was formed.

“Fossils can date how animals migrated from one place to another and how continents moved through time,” said Dr Mateus.

“From fossils we can work out when terrestrial animals were no longer able to cross from Africa to South America and when marine animals were.”

As vital as this research is to discovering more about our world and how and when things happened, finding money to fund the studies is not easy. A month’s field expedition with a transit through the capital Luanda can run into tens of thousands of dollars.

So far, PaeloAngola has found support from the National

Octávio Mateus and Mike Polcyn

Geographic Society, the Petroleum Research Fund, the Southern Methodist University, the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Luanda and Portugal’s national airline TAP, but Dr Mateus said more sponsorship was the key to secure future research.

Tourist attraction “We’re looking forward to our trip in July very much, but it does depend to some extent on what funding we can get,” he said. “Dr Jacobs has applied to the National Science Foundation in the US and if we get that it will be awesome, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed because if that doesn’t come through it could all be a bit tricky.”

As well as looking into Angola’s past, the PaleoAngola project is also looking forward with a view to developing Angolan scientists and academic institutions, and it is working in collaboration with Agostinho Neto University in Luanda and the Private University of Angola in Lubango.

Dr Jacobs, who in the past headed Kenya’s National Palaeontology Museum, said: “The idea, as well as to do this research, is to train Angolan scientists so that they can run their show. Angolans should be able to use their own unique resources in museums to teach future generations about their country and the world. Everybody likes dinosaurs and, in the long-term, this could become a tourist attraction.”

Dr Mateus added: “We want to do this work with the Angolans, for the Angolans. This project is only successful if the Angolans are applied and engaged as well. That’s a very important point for us.”

MARCH 2010 25

26 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

SÃO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE

IN SPLENDID

ISOLATION

Pictures: Sarah Monaghan

Angola’s closest cultural ties are with the tiny archipelago of São Tomé and Príncipe, which is now becoming a paradise for tourists. Sarah Monaghan reports ➔

MARCH 2010 27

SÃO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE

I

am in a fairytale scene. Abandoned colonial buildings surround me, the jungle having wreathed its way around them like Mayan temples. A banana tree has invaded the hall of the casa do patrão (the master’s house) and lianas are clambering across its peeling ceilings. Is Sleeping Beauty lying upstairs?

A shutter flaps in the wind. I climb a marble staircase. From a balustrade balcony onto which the sun spills comes the reflected sparkle of turquoise waters and the view of a palm-fringed beach below.

The chlorophyll green of the jungle leading down to the shore is lit by the hot orange of flame trees and the flash of a yellowbreasted sunbird.

Time seems to have stopped on Príncipe. I am part of a living history lesson.

This plantation, Roça Sundi, encircled by turreted walls, was once the island’s biggest cocoa estate and a former home to the Portuguese royal family. In its grounds a rusting steam locomotive still sits on corroded tracks. Until 40 or so years ago, it would have carried fresh cocoa beans through the jungle to the coast for export to Lisbon.

It is little wonder that São Tomé and Príncipe give a sense of being a tear in the fabric of time. Positioned off the West Coast of Africa, the islands are, in geographical

28 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

terms, at the centre of the world – the closest land mass to the point in the Atlantic where the imaginary line of the equator crosses the zero meridian. Older geologically than the Galapagos Islands, they are so isolated that many plant and bird species are endemic.

Slaves Carlito is my guide. He, like many islanders, speaks Lung’iye, a Creole tongue, as well as Portuguese. His ancestors came from Cape Verde and were part of the import of thousands of slaves brought in by the Portuguese from the 15th century onwards from its African colonies. Toiling a six-day week, with only the songs of their homeland to break the monotony, their efforts meant that by the early 20th century the islands had become one of the world’s largest cocoa producers. Carlito’s father was still working for a Portuguese plantation owner in 1975 when independence was declared.

Today, oil exploration has begun offshore, and tourism and investment are bringing a new optimism. Cocoa and coffee production is restarting and many of the old plantation houses are being restored as rural hotels, attracting adventurous travellers keen to trek the rainforests, lounge on the deserted beaches and explore the crumbling colonial splendour.

In the capital city, São Tomé, a Portuguese chain has just opened a five-star hotel complete with infinity pool over the

bay where the first Portuguese ships landed in 1470. Along the coast, the prettiest beaches dotted by fishermen’s shacks are earmarked for holiday developments.

On Príncipe, I base myself at Bom Bom Island Resort. Pagoda-style bungalows sit on a shoreline overhung by coconut palms.

Each evening I cross a long wooden pier, through which the waves splash, to a forested islet and a simple restaurant where tables are decorated with tropical flowers.

The other guests are a group of Portuguese, an Englishman and his grandson here for the excellent sports fishing, and two adventurous tourists from Paris, Oscar and Ludwig, who have spent the past week trekking on São Tomé, staying in restored roças, the old feudal plantations.

It is so delightful here that it would be easy to simply sit on my veranda with a novel, watching fallen coconuts wash in and out, and that is exactly what I do on my first day. The next day, I go scuba diving.

The volcanic ocean floor and the mix of equatorial currents make for a fantastic underwater show of fan corals, turtles, barracuda and rays.

Oscar, Ludwig and I set off on quad bikes the following day. We rumble past clapboard houses painted tropical turquoise, fuchsia or yellow. Their residents wave and call a welcome good morning: “Bom dia!” We reach Roça Belo Monte, another example of tumbledown splendour high on a hill. “It’s gorgeous. I

SÃO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE

The Angolan connection Roça Agostinho Neto

Angola’s historical, economic and cultural links with São Tomé and Príncipe are so strong that they even feature on the back of the 5,000-dobra note, which depicts São Tomé’s most impressive plantation, Roça Agostinho Neto. Originally named Rio do Ouro, it was renamed Agostinho Neto in 1979 after the first Angolan president and poet (192279) to celebrate the political, military and financial help his government gave to the young republic. His bust still greets visitors on arrival at the roça, where there are plans to convert the former hospital building into a university campus for the island.

Historically, Angola’s most significant role in the history of São Tomé and Príncipe is perhaps found at the fishing town of São João dos Angolares in the east of São Tomé. The Angolares, a fishing people populating the coastal stretches from Santa Catarina in the west down to Ilhéu das Rolas in the south, have fascinated the local imagination for a long time.

A distinct socio-cultural group of several thousand, they speak their own language, N’gola. For centuries, mystery surrounded the question of how the Angolares came to be on the island.

Legend tells that the Angolares are the descendents of a slave ship from Angola shipwrecked here, whose Rei Amador led the most successful slave uprising in 1595. He remains a national hero and is very important to the Angolares and Santomean identity. The Angolares’ Creole culture remains alive in language and rituals, in bulaué music and the work of local artists. The dramatic works of Fernando de Macedo (1927-2006) focus on Angolar history giving voice to this history of Santomean society. Macedo, a Portuguese writer who styled himself as a descendant of the last Angolan king, celebrates the landscape and the force of tradition on the island. You can impress the locals here with a few words of their N’gola. language: Ma vira-ó? Everything ok? N’ sabóa! Everything is fine!

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30 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

SÃO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE

want to buy this house and restore it to a boutique hotel,” sighs Oscar. He is too late.

A Portuguese company has had the same idea…

Footprint The sun has come out. Below is Praia Banana, a curve of white sand with gin-clear water that was once the setting for a Bacardi rum commercial. There’s not a single other footprint in the sand on this pictureperfect beach. We run to dive into the sea.

It is a 40-minute hop in a propeller plane across the 150km of ocean that divides Príncipe from São Tomé and its ‘international’ airport – grass grows between the cracks on the runway and goats and hens roam outside. Two hulking rusting 1950s propeller planes sit on a slipway.

In São Tomé’s tiny capital I wander the streets, making small talk with moneychangers with battered briefcases, and admiring colonial-style buildings with ornate wooden balconies that would not look out of place in Havana. Overlooking it all is the lumbering white fortress of São Sebastião, built by the Portuguese in 1576 and now the national museum. The curator moves a stone trap door. Rebellious plantation workers used to be placed in the dungeon beneath and dealt with by the tide.

Swarming the capital’s main square are saffron-yellow taxis alongside a raucous market where women sit with pyramids of limes, tomatoes and chillies, or piles of spiny breadfruit and pockmarked jackfruits. Others have enamel bowls, balanced on their heads, from which poke the jagged tails of peixe voador (flying fish).

Three hundred and sixty degrees of ocean mean that fish is always on the menu and during my stay I eat plenty, from sharing a simple meal of grilled fish and breadfruit with fishermen over a beach fire to an elaborate tasting menu of traditional San-

”

tomean cuisine at Roça São João.

This restored roça is the perfect example of a successful rural ecotourism venture. Run by celebrity chef João Carlos Silva, whose TV series On the Plantation with Moustaches has been hugely popular in Africa, it has six simple but elegant guest bedrooms with views over the forest down to the fishing village of São João dos Angolares.

Spices The six-course tasting lunch uses spices that echo a heritage stretching from Mozambique to Angola and to Cape Verde.

I savour rice fish balls with saffron and coriander; grilled tuna with vanilla seeds; omelette de micoco, a thyme-like herb, and the national dish calulú, a stew made from smoked chicken and fresh herbs.

On my last evening at Café e Companhia, a bar where tables spill into the street, I meet a young Santomean painter, Kwame Sousa. His Impressionistic work of exuberant colours and local scenes sells for high prices in Lisbon and is on display at the city’s Teia D’@rte Gallery that exhibits work by native artists and those from former Portuguese colonies.

“Life is so real here and the colours are so unreal,” enthuses Kwame. In recent years, he says, the islands have become an artistic mecca. To prove the point, he invites me to a street party near the gallery where we see more innovative work on show and where a kizomba band plays a sensual but stomping rhythm that has its roots in the music’s Angolan heritage.

I leave São Tomé and Príncipe in a blur of colour: from the bright yellows and purples of cocoa pods; to the pink of the porcelain-like rose endemic to the isles; to the cobalt waters that shine through the palm trees, this is a dazzling country that offers a very warm welcome.

How to get there Sarah Monaghan travelled to São Tomé and Príncipe with Africa’s Eden (www.africas-eden.com). Activities depend on the season and include guided island-exploration tours, plantation visits, trekking, birdwatching, whale watching, sea turtle night viewing, quad biking, sports fishing, kayaking, snorkelling and diving.

From Europe: You can travel to São Tomé and Príncipe directly from Lisbon with TAP or via Gabon with Air France, Gabon Airlines, Royal Air Maroc or Lufthansa, with a connecting flight to São Tomé (one hour from Libreville) with the Equatorial Guinean airline CEIBA on Mondays and Fridays. Africa’s Eden’s own airline Africa’s Connection connects São Tomé with Príncipe.

From Angola: STP Airways flies each Wednesday to and from Luanda; The Angolan airline TAAG flies twice a week, Sunday and Friday.

The local currency is the Santomean dobra ($) although euros are widely accepted. Portuguese is the lingua franca; French is also widely spoken, and some English.

Equatorial Guinea

Libreville

Gabon Congo

São Tomé and Príncipe

DRC

Luanda

Angola

Google Maps

“

His Impressionistic work of exuberant colours and local scenes sells for high prices in Lisbon and is on display at the city’s Teia D’@rte Gallery

MARCH 2010 31

onangol celebrated its 34th anniversary on February 25 and, to mark the occasion, chairman Manuel Vicente gave his annual media conference and an update on the company’s performance and plans for 2010.

Last year was an important milestone for the Angolan oil industry. Angola held the rotating presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) in 2009 and hosted the annual end-of-year summit in December. The decision of the summit to maintain production levels has helped keep the price of oil stable, and we devote 14 pages to the event in this section.

This year promises to be very exciting for Sonangol with developments on several fronts.

As we report here, the company has won the contracts to develop two oilfields in Iraq.

Also, Angola has signed oil co-operation documents with Ecuador, which holds the current Opec presidency, and India.

On the home front, Sonangol’s birthday programme of activities for its 9,000-plus employees and their families included sports events and a celebratory lunch.

➔

32 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Healthy outlook Esso Angola has pledged to spend $3.5 million on social programmes and community investments in the country during 2010. The money will be channelled through non-governmental organisations focusing on public health and education. “These programmes help to prevent illnesses, reduce poverty and stimulate the economic development, which in turn means more people and

communities across Angola benefit as well,” said Jim Seale, general director of Esso Angola, a subsidiary of US giant ExxonMobil. Since 2000, the ExxonMobil Foundation has invested more than $23 million in social, education and health community initiatives. Esso Angola has been operating in Block 15 Angola since 1994 and is the largest producer of oil in the country.

China date

Safety first

Sonangol will be putting Angola on the world map when it takes part in Expo Shanghai 2010 from May 1 to October 31 in China. More than 70 million people are expected to visit the event which has the theme ‘Better City, Better Life’, based on improving urban environments. There will be 12 pavilions on the site which covers a total area of 5.28 sq km and spans both sides of the Huangpu River.

José Botelho de Vasconcelos, Angola’s Minister for Oil, has called for more control to improve the safety of oil workers and protect the natural environment. Addressing a seminar on regulation within the industry, the minister said it was important to make sure all oil companies were operating within the rules. He said the oil ministry would be working to ensure all industry activity was adequately checked and regulated.

iStockphoto.com

Sonangol news briefing S

NEWS

Iraq

➔

Song Shi Jing/Redlink/Corbis

iStockphoto.com

Sonangol overseas

ship gas company, was among the delegation. He said discussions had been held on Indian investment in liquefied natural gas projects in Angola. “We have talked about sourcing LNG from the project which is due to start commissioning in December 2012, and also about the possibility of participating in a second LNG project as a promoter and taking equity,” he told reporters.

Ecuador

Angola has signed a letter of intent with Ecuador to help explore and produce oil and gas. The agreement was signed in Quito by Angolan oil minister José Botelho de Vasconcelos and his counterpart Germánico Pinto. Sonangol will partner with Ecuador’s state oil company Petroecuador to develop projects in the country’s Amazon region.

iStockphoto.com

Sonangol has signed a memorandum of understanding with India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) with a view to boosting co-operation between the two companies. ONGC chairman R.S. Sharma said that the document “will show the co-operation between the two companies to work together in the future for exploration activities in Angola. We have also agreed that the two companies can work together for co-operation in third-world countries and also in India.”

Earlier, India’s Minister for Petroleum Murli Deora met his Angolan counterpart José Botelho de Vasconcelos to discuss the deepening of ties in the overall energy sector. Travelling with Deora, who was also visiting Sudan, Nigeria and Uganda, were several key Indian energy companies, among them Gail (India) Ltd and Indian Oil Corp.

Shri B.C. Tripathi, chairman and managing director of Gail, India’s flag-

➔

India

➔

Sonangol has won deals to develop two oilfields in northern Iraq. The Qayara and Najmah fields are said to have reserves of over 1 billion barrels of oil.

Sonangol signed the exploration agreement during a bidding auction held in December in Baghdad. The company is likely to work in partnership with foreign companies to explore the reserves.

MARCH 2010 33

A DAY TO

Opec family photo, taken in Luanda on December 22, 2009: Dr Rilwanu Lukman, the Nigerian Minister of Petroleum Resources; Bernard Mommer, Venezuela’s Governor to Opec; Ms Nawal Al-Fuzaia, Kuwait’s Governor for Opec; Abdullah El-Badri, Opec General Secretary; Mohammad bin Dhaen al-Hamli, the UAE's Minister of Energy; Shokri Ghanem, the Libyan Chairman of NOC; Ali al-Naimi, Saudi Arabian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral 34 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

NEWS

REMEMBER

AFP/Getty Images

Angola’s first ever Opec summit, to mark the end of its inaugural year holding the presidency, was heralded as a great success ➔

Resources; Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah, Qatarian Minister of Energy and Industry; José Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos, Angolan Minister of Petroleum and President of Opec; Paulo Kassoma, Angolan Prime Minister; Chakib Khelil, Algerian Minister of Energy and Mines; Hussain Al-Shahristani, Iraqi Minister of Oil; Al-Husayn Mirza, Bahrain’s Minister of Oil; Khatibi Tabatabai, Iran’s Governor for Opec; and Germánico Alfredo Pinto Troya, Ecuadoran Minister of Mines and Petroleum MARCH 2010 35

NEWS

I

n December, representatives from all 12 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries arrived in Luanda for the 155th Opec summit. The day-long conference was a great opportunity for Angola to show the international community that it could host such a high-profile event, coming as it did only a few weeks before the first matches were played in the Africa Cup of Nations.

Angola is the most recent member country of Opec, having joined in 2007. Two years later, in January 2009, Angola was given the annual rotating presidency and José Botelho de Vasconcelos, Angola’s Minister for Petroleum, took over as Opec’s president for the next 12 months.

It is Opec tradition that the end-of-year summit is hosted by the presiding nation. For weeks before it took place, the Angolan media reflected national excitement about the event and Botelho de Vasconcelos became the most wanted man in the country. The new monthly finance magazine Exame pictured him on the cover of its launch issue with the headline ‘Mr Opec’, with an in-depth interview inside. A few days before the summit, the press corps arrived en masse from capitals including London, Paris, Johannesburg, Lisbon and Dubai.

International reporters were particularly interested in the Luanda summit because it has been a turbulent few years for Opec. In the final quarter of 2008, oil prices dropped considerably, a direct consequence of the global economic crisis. In December of that year, as the price of a barrel of oil fell to under $40, Opec decided to make significant cuts in oil production in an effort to stabilise prices. It was Opec’s biggest ever production cut.

In 2009, Angola took over the Opec presidency in testing circumstances – a great challenge for the rookie nation, especially since cutting production is a double-edged sword: prices may rise, but if production drops so may revenues. In Angola, the oil sector represents 80 per cent of revenue and 97 per cent of exports.

Top: Delegates at the summit

Bottom right: José Botelho de Vasconcelos, Angola’s Minister of Petroleum during an interview 36 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Pictures: OPEC

Bottom left: Hussain Al-Shahristani, Iraqi Minister of Oil

MARCH 2010 37

38 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Pictures: OPEC

NEWS

All of the Opec member nations’ oil ministers were present in Luanda, except for Iran’s minister, Masoud Mir-Kazemi, and Kuwait’s minister, Sheikh Ahmad Abdullah Al-Sabah, who were represented by their Opec governors.

The representatives of four non-Opec countries, Egypt, Bahrain, Oman and Indonesia, were attending the summit as observers.

Angolan preparations for the event included the opening of the country’s first fivestar hotel at the Talatona Convention Center, where the VIP guests had luxury chalets.

The summit began with a welcome speech

by Botelho de Vasconcelos. “When we accepted this presidency, we knew that it would be difficult,” he said. “But we didn’t hesitate to face the challenge. Today, we can announce without fear of mistake that we managed to fulfill our goals.”

When Angola took over the presidency in January last year, oil prices were still very low.

They improved during the year and by December were fluctuating between $70 and $80 a barrel, a price considered ideal by most of the cartel’s members. “At between $70 and $80, everyone is happy,” said Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi. “The current price is good for consumers, producers and investors.”

Botelho de Vasconcelos said that the increase in the oil price was not just due to the production cut; in the second half of 2009 the market had reached some kind of “serenity” thanks to the improved economic outlook in Asia and Europe. He added that he was proud of Angola’s presidency because the country was still in a phase of rebuilding and that complying with the quotas was a real sacrifice. The meeting also confirmed that Opec had decided to maintain oil production at current levels.

Later, Paulo Kassoma, Angola’s Prime Minister, expressed his concern for the planet and his intention to adopt measures in favour of sustainable development, such as investments in clean-technology projects and implementing radical changes in production and consumption habits.

After the speeches, the ministers met for a short closed-door meeting and then went

AFP/Getty Images

Top left: Al-Husayn Mirza, Bahrain’s Minister of Oil Top right: Libyan General Secretary of Opec, Abdullah El-Badri Bottom: Paulo Kassoma, Prime Minister of Angola MARCH 2010 39

briefly to the Presidential Palace to meet Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos.

In the afternoon, Botelho de Vasconcelos and Opec secretary general Abdalla El-Badri gave a press conference that lasted for an hour.

The two men remained encouraging and positive: El-Badri repeated that the current oil prices were “suitable for producers and consumers” and Botelho de Vasconcelos declared that different economic signs on a global scale made them think that the price would remain at this level in 2010.

They also renewed the call on non-Opec oil producers to support oil-market stabilisation, since the restoration of market equilibrium was “a burden which Opec member countries are unable to bear alone”.

In the official statement after the press conference, the cartel warned that “although asset market prices have rebounded and economic growth has resumed in some parts of the world, it is not yet clear how strong or durable the recovery might be ”.

Concerning Angola, Botelho de Vasconcelos said that one of the next big challenges for the country would be the new refinery in Lobito, which should be ready in 2014. Angola currently consumes 75,000 barrels of petrol a day and still imports half of its daily needs.

In conclusion, El-Badri made a very complimentary comment on Angola’s presidency of Opec: “I would give an ‘A’ if I had to qualify this period of Angolan presidency,” he said.

The Angolan media praised the summit.

Weekly private paper O País ran with the headline ‘Mission Accomplished’, saying that the presidency had ended well. And the national daily paper Jornal de Angola considered that “the Angolan presidency of Opec was positive”.

A year ago, Angolans were very aware that the smooth running of the Opec presidency would help create a positive image of Angola’s capacity to govern. Twelve months later, as Botelho de Vasconcelos handed over the presidency to Ecuador’s oil minister Germánico Pinto, he seemed very satisfied that he had managed to maintain a form of cohesion inside the oil cartel throughout a difficult time.

AFP/Getty Images

NEWS

Bottom left: The international press corps Right: Manuel Vicente, Sonangol Chairman 40 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Pictures: OPEC

Top left: Ali aI-Naimi, Saudi Arabian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources

MARCH 2010 41

Pictures: OPEC

Delegates came from all of Opec’s 12 members – Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela – and four observer countries: Egypt, Bahrain, Oman and Indonesia

42 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

MARCH 2010 43

OPEC

44 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

NEWS

A

ngola’s first five-star hotel opened its doors in December to welcome ministers and guests to the Opec summit. The Talatona Convention Hotel, which is adjacent to the convention centre in Luanda Sul where the Opec meeting was held, was officially inaugurated by President José Eduardo dos Santos.

The five-storey building has 201 rooms, including 20 suites and a presidential suite, as well as 20 villas, each with two bedrooms plus additional accommodation for a driver or other staff. Rooms, which range from $600 to $5,000 a night, are air-conditioned and have internet and other communication facilities.

There are 12 meeting rooms, a swimming pool, a gym, tennis courts, beauty-treatment

rooms and a number of restaurants and bars. These include Sabores do Mussulo serving seafood; La Piazza Del Forno, serving Italian cuisine; Brent’s Bar, a meeting place and cocktail lounge; and the Pebbles Club for night entertainment.

At the opening, Minister of Tourism Pedro Mutindi said: “This business represents another asset for the growth of the country’s hotel and tourism industry.”

Maria Idalina Valente, the Minister of Commerce, added: “With progress already achieved in many fields, the country deserves to have a facility of this level.”

A mixture of national and expatriate staff make up the hotel’s workforce of 400 and in January the hotel formed the base for the Confederation of African Football in Angola for the Africa Cup of Nations.

MARCH 2010 45

Pictures: OPEC

Images from the Opec summit: (clockwise from bottom left) an interior from the Talatona Convention Hotel; Angolan art; hostesses; “The Thinker” – a symbol of Angola; dancers

46 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

MARCH 2010 47

NEWS

OIL FOR SALE An interview with Lucinda Guimarães, Sonangol’s commercial director Can you tell us a little bit about your career?

I started work at Banco Standard Totta in July 1975 and later worked for the Ministry of Industry, Imavest Company, Tornang Company and from 1985 to 2006 at the Ministry of Petroleum. Since July 2006 I have been working for Sonangol.

Looking ahead, what are the challenges for your department?

The main challenge is to keep the team members motivated and to constantly improve their professional skills so that they are ready to face new developments in the oil sector.

What are the main features of your job as commercial director?

How important is Angola’s membership of Opec to your department?

The aims are to guarantee the execution of all the commercialisation operations for crude oil and refined products in order to maximise the acquisition of proceeds; to strengthen Sonangol’s image as a competitor company on the international market; and to support our subsidiaries abroad by providing solutions to their concerns.

Opec’s main objective is to guarantee crude-oil price stability on the international market, to avoid volatility and guarantee stable proceeds to its members as well as a continuing supply of crude oil at a fair price. Since Angola is a country that depends mainly on oil revenues, I support the idea of having stable prices and my department positively contributes to reach this objective.

How many people work in your department and how is it structured?

How do you see the future of the oil industry in Africa?

There are 31 people in my department, which is structured as follows: secretary, crude oil department, inspection department and products department.

We have exported mainly crude oil and some fuel oil, nafta, gasoil, gasoline and Jet A-1. We have tried to diversify our customers but they are mainly from China, the United States and Europe.

Africa is, and will continue to be, a critical component of world energy supply. It is rapidly expanding its exportable energy-resource base to include natural gas and, over time, can also be expected to become a significant exporter of petroleum products as it builds new refinery capacity. This growth will require new skills and create new employment opportunities across the African continent. The challenge for Africa will be to develop these human resources quickly. I am pleased to say that considerable progress is being made on this front, both in Angola and across the continent.

Can you give an idea of the volumes of sales and how they have grown?

How does it feel to be one of the few women directors at Sonangol?

Angola’s petroleum activity has risen over the last few years and the volume of sales increased according to the production level.

I am certainly proud to be one of the few women directors at Sonangol. It strives to encourage and promote those individuals who have the capacity to lead the company and the country forward in the new economic era in which we find ourselves.

Sonangol’s management does not consider that an individual’s gender plays any role whatsoever in their ability to succeed and to help others to succeed. I am proud to be part of an organisation that recognises this fundamental fact.

What are the products that you sell and who are Sonangol’s main customers?

How would you like your department to develop over the next few years?

I hope my department will turn into an autonomous business unit which is more efficient.

“

Sonangol strives to encourage and promote those individuals who have the capacity to lead the company and the country forward in the new economic era in which we find ourselves

48 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Lucinda Guimarães Lucinda de Carvalho Ribeiro Guimarães Kamene M Traça

Born Luanda March 5, 1956 Graduated in Economics at Agostinho Neto University in 1984

MARCH 2010 49

CONGO

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

Cabinda

Zaire Uíge

Bengo Luanda

Kwanza Norte

Lunda Norte Malanje

Lunda Sul Kwanza Sul

Huambo

Bié Moxico

Benguela

Huíla ZAMBIA

NB Illustrations/David Atkinson

Namibe

50 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Cunene Kuando Kubango

NAMIBIA BOTSWANA

THE BIG PICTURE:

TREES

A

ngola has a rich flora including many species of trees. This is not surprising with its varied terrain, ranging from coastal plains to mountain escarpments and high plateaux, and with a wide-ranging climate producing deserts in the south, equatorial tropical jungle in the north and a great area of grassland savannah in the centre. Here we look at three of the country’s most interesting trees.

Baobab The African baobab, known in Angola as the imbondeiro, is native to much of Africa and is regarded as the largest succulent plant in the world. The enormous rather squat trunk can reach 28m in girth while the tree seldom reaches more than 25m in height, so that many traditional Africans believed that God planted the tree upside down. It is the archetypical large solitary tree of the savannah, although in Angola it also grows in woodlands and in coastal regions. It has large, white, sweetly-scented flowers visible at night which are mainly pollinated by fruit bats, although large insects and birds also visit to collect the nectar. Many stories are told about this tree: for example, if a person eats one of the flowers they, in turn, will be eaten by a lion, while sucking the seeds may attract crocodiles.

The imbondeiro has large velvetskinned fruits called mukua or múcua which have been described as looking like large rats hanging from the tree by their tails. They contain an off-white powdery material that can be made into a refreshing drink which is rich in vitamin C and has twice as much calcium as milk. In 2008, the fruit was given approval by the European Union to be used in smoothies and cereal bars. The trunks of the imbondeiros are so massive that those with hollow centres have been used as houses, storage barns and even as pubs and rainwater reservoirs. The leaves can be cooked fresh as a vegetable and the fibrous bark is good for making mats.

Lifuá or Douka The province of Cabinda has a wonderful abundance of trees, producing valuable timber. Thirty-six different species of such trees are listed by the Angolan Ministry of Agriculture. The lifuá or douka is one of these. The lifuá occurs in a geographical area stretching from Cameroon in the north, down through Gabon and the Congos and then on to the Mayombe (or Maiombe) forest of Cabinda. The trees tend to grow singly or in groups of three or four and have a diameter of up to two metres. Their great clean trunks grow to such a height that they can burst though the forest canopy.

The green, then yellow, fruits grow up to 10cm in diameter and are each filled with a sweet-smelling orangey pulp. Forest elephants travel great distances to search out the ripe fallen crop, and their well-worn trails through the jungle mark out their movements from one lifuá tree to another. The elephants perform a valuable task in the dispersal of the tree seeds. Conservationists are concerned that overlogging of the lifuá will adversely affect these forest elephants.

Workers sawing up the timber of both lifuá and makoré wood have to be careful as the dust can cause respiratory irritation, dermatitis and conjunctivitis.

Mopane The mopane cannot match the imbondeiro or the lifuá for size and presence but it is an important food plant for the valuable mopane ‘worm’. The tree is slim and grey-trunked, usually growing to about seven to ten metres in height, although it can reach 30 metres. It has a crown of rigid, irregular branches and grows in a riparian habitat along the Cunene River among the dry forests of southern Angola – as well as in parts of Namibia and other countries in Southern Africa.

Its leaves are often described as beautiful and elegant, or like butterflies, and they close up in the heat of the sun to preserve moisture. Where the trees are numerous, little grass grows beneath.

The leaves have a turpentine odour browsing families of elephants sometimes strip off the leaves and bark and snap and push over the trees. The mopane worms which also eat the leaves are the caterpillars of the magnificent mopane emperor moth. These caterpillars can reach 10cm in length and are an important part of the diet of many local people who consider them a great delicacy.

They are rich in protein, usually roasted, and a trade in the dried caterpillars has also evolved.

Some 34 species of bird feed on these nutritious insects. There is concern elsewhere in Africa that a possible over-harvesting of the caterpillars might eventually make them extinct.

MARCH 2010 51