universo27

Universo SEPTEMBER 2010

Take the tube The Angolan company making pipes for Africa

Hello world!

Angola at Expo 2010 Shanghai

Loan arrangers The success of microcredit

INSIDE:

oil and gas news

Sonangol Department for Communication & Image Director João Rosa Santos

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

Publisher

Sheila O’Callaghan

Editor

Alex Bellos

Art Director David Gould

Sub Editor Ron Gribble

Advertising Design Bernd Wojtczack

Circulation Manager Matthew Alexander

Project Consultants

Group President

4

Angola has been given its first credit rating by Standard & Poor’s; Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva visits Luanda; a flight links Nairobi and Luanda for the first time; Angola improves health and education for children, says Unicef; the United States and Angola sign memorandum of understanding; President dos Santos visits Ghana and Brazil; Luanda hosts the summit of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries

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.

This magazine is distributed to a closed circulation. To receive a free copy: circulation@universo-magazine.com Circulation: 17,000

6 Snow Hill, London EC1A 2AY Tel + 44 20 7002 7778 Fax +44 20 7002 7779 sonangol@impact-media.com Cover: Carlos Moco

2 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Angola news briefing

5

Figured out A snapshot of Angola in numbers

6

Jonathan Browning

Manuel Vicente (President), Anabela Fonseca, Mateus de Brito, Fernando Roberto, Francisco de Lemos, Baptista Sumbe, Sebastião Gaspar Martins

Jose Silva Pinto

T

his issue has a very international flavour. We kick off with the World Expo in Shanghai, where about 25,000 people a day are visiting the Angolan pavilion. We look inside the pavilion and meet the man running it.

Back in Angola, we have a story on the first company in Angola that is manufacturing equipment for the oil industry in another country.

Angoflex is making pipes and shipping them to Ghana for that country’s first deepwater project. The message is that Angola is asserting its place in Africa and the world.

We also focus on the growth in business potential in Angola, looking at the clothing industry. Microfinance has allowed market stallholders to expand their goods and import clothes from abroad, while new Angolan designers are producing their own fashion items that mix African and international styles.

Angolans famously like to look good, and their growing economy is helping them do so in style.

Board Members

Nathalie MacCarthy Mauro Perillo

18

Inside this issue

Universo is the international magazine of Sonangol

6

Our house Angola’s pavilion at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai has been very popular with Chinese visitors, with queues lasting several hours as people wait to see images, objects and films about the country

18 Loan stars Microcredit schemes are having remarkable success in helping poor Angolans get a step up on the business ladder. We look at one Angolan importing shoes and handbags to her market stall and another running a profitable cantina. We also profile KixiCrédito, the first microcredit scheme in Angola

CONTENTS

30

Jose Silva Pinto

50

26 Splash out on a cab

Carlos Moco

Kamene M Traça

40

30 Dressed to impress

Angolan company Fast Sea Transport is hoping that businesspeople will make their daily commute from Luanda Sul to the city centre by boat. We also look at plans recently announced by President dos Santos for Luanda’s first metro rail network

26

Angolan designers are winning plaudits for their fusion of African and international style. Lucrécia Moreira is one of them, and her dresses are worn by the First Lady Ana Paula dos Santos

35 Jean genius Ginga Neto’s brand Mahinda Prestige has put out Angola’s first collection of denim, with national symbols on the pockets

36 Passion for fashion Designer Me Sente was the hit of the Moda Luanda fashion show with his collection Gold of the Future

Sonangol News 38 Sonangol

news briefing

40 Pipeline to prosperity Angoflex is making tubes for Ghana

46 Treasure in the salt cellar

Exploration excitement about what lies in the pre-salt layers

50 Inside Angola The Black Rocks at Pungo Andongo

SEPTEMBER 2010 3

Angola news briefing Firm friends

Good credit

Don Mason/Corbis

Angola has been given its first credit rating.

Standard & Poor’s has awarded Angola ratings of B+ for long-term and B for short-term foreign and local currency debt, saying the decision was supported by the outlook for oil production, strong economic growth prospects and low levels of government debt. Fitch also gave a B+ rating with a positive outlook, while Moody’s ranked it as B1/N-P. The rating – the same awarded to Brazil and Russia when they were first rated – means Angola is now in a position to issue international bonds on the markets, a process it has been considering for some time.

Angola’s economy is expected to grow by 8.5 per cent in 2010.

4 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

AFP/Getty Images

Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva visited Angola in July for a week-long trip to boost trade and political relations between the two countries. The president was accompanied by a delegation of more than one hundred businessmen. The visit was timed to coincide with Angola hosting the biannual summit of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries and FILDA, Luanda’s annual trade fair. There are more than 10,000 Portuguese companies exporting to Angola and 2,000 Angolan companies have Portuguese capital. Trade between the two countries reached €2.2 billion in 2009. Angola is Portugal’s fourth-biggest commercial partner and its largest outside Europe.

During his visit, Mr Cavaco Silva met Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos, addressed the country’s National Assembly and opened a new brick factory called Uniceramica, operated

by Portugual’s Mota Engil and Cerâmicas de Angola. The unit, just north of Luanda, will produce an estimated two million bricks a month and has created around 100 jobs.

Giving Mr Cavaco Silva a warm welcome, President Dos Santos said Angola and Portugal were in a “privileged position to establish an exchange to bring about beneficial results for both parties.”

New flights Kenya Airways was due to launch a direct flight between Angola and Nairobi in August, the first between the two countries. The new service will be the Kenyan company’s 50th destination and run twice a week under a code share with Angola’s national airline TAAG. Meanwhile, the ‘Houston Express’ flight between Luanda and Houston is now being operated by Atlas Air on behalf of the United States-Africa Energy Association (USAEA) and SonAir, Sonangol’s airline. The Boeing 747-400 aircraft has ten seats in first class, 143 in business class and 36 in economy. The 14-15 hour direct flight is available only to USAEA members.

Figured out

20

US ties Angola and the United States have agreed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to create a bilateral commission between the two countries. Angola’s Foreign Minister Assunção dos Anjos signed the deal in Washington alongside US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who visited Angola in August 2009. Mrs Clinton said the MOU represented “a new chapter in the relationship between Angola and the United States and reflects the many ties that already connect our nations”. In April, Angola and the United States signed an air services agreement to allow direct commercial flights between the two countries.

Number of commercial banks operating in Angola

AFP/Getty Images

€2.2 billion

Mike Kemp

Foreign tour

Getting better Angola has made strides in improving education and health care since the end of its civil war in 2002, according to the United Nations children’s fund, Unicef. “More Angolan children are enrolled in primary school than ever before,” said Unicef Angola representative Koen Vanormelingen. “There has been notable progress in reducing malnutrition, improving education, gender balance, child survival, and malaria and HIV control.”

The percentage of children in primary school increased from 56 per cent to 76 per cent in the nine years since the last study, with nearly as many girls enrolled as boys, Unicef said, but noted that close to one million youngsters are still not attending lessons.

President José Eduardo dos Santos visited Ghana and Brazil on a two-leg foreign tour beginning in Accra in June, where he met President John Atta Mills of Ghana and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil. The visit to Ghana was aimed at strengthening relations between the two African countries and saw the signing of an Economic Co-operation General Accord in science, technique and culture. In Brazil, dos Santos and his delegation of ministers signed 12 separate accords in various areas including health, defence and education to support training and knowledge exchange.

Common language Luanda hosted the 2010 Summit of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries in July. The event, staged at the Talatona Convention Centre, is held every two years to discuss political, cultural and social issues across the Portuguese-speaking world. The week-long summit, attended by heads of state, is the culmination of various subcommittee and regional meetings staged across the member countries. The Community was created in July 1996 by Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe. In 2002, East Timor also joined.

Trade between Angola and Portugal in 2009

55%

Value of Angola’s oil sector in terms of GDP

15 years

Length of tax break offered for private investment in certain parts of Angola

754 Exhibitors at this year’s FILDA trade fair in Luanda

$800 million Money that mobile phone operator UNITEL plans to invest in 2010/11

SEPTEMBER 2010 5

Pictures: Jonathan Browning

The Angolan pavilion lights up the night

6 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

EXPO 2010

OUR HOUSE Angola’s pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai is proving to be a big draw ➔

SEPTEMBER 2010 7

8 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

EXPO 2010

O

n one side stands Rainha Ginga, on the other the King of Congo. The two figures from Angolan history watch over the entrance to the country’s pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai.

Shaped like a Welwitschia mirabilis, the resilient plant from the Namibe Desert in the south of Angola, the pavilion offers a collection of images, stories and tastes from the country to the Chinese visitors.

Inside there are replicas of famous Angolan buildings, traditional Angolan food is served and there are performances by artists from across Africa. Under the slogan New Angola, Better Life, the pavilion underlines the country’s diversity, from the countryside to the cities.

Special things Chinese interest in the Angolan pavilion has surpassed all the organisers’ expectations, attracting around 25,000 visitors each day. About half a million people have already passed through since the event began. “We have brought the best of Angola, its history and slices of contemporary life,” said Élio Gamboa, the pavilion’s director.

“I’ve seen such special things that I had never seen before, such as typical Angolan fruits and the history of its currency,” said Liu Xiaowen, one visitor who works in the telecoms industry, as she stood in

“ The giant sable antelope is the national symbol of Angola

Chinese interest in the Angolan pavilion has surpassed all the organisers’ expectations, attracting around 25,000 visitors each day

”

SEPTEMBER 2010 9

Angolan beat: images from inside the pavilion

10 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

EXPO 2010

line to have her Expo passport stamped with a ‘visa’ from the host country of each pavilion.

The Shanghai Expo is based on the idea of sustainable cities (its slogan is Better City – Better Life) and the Chinese government expects as many as 70 million visitors by the time it closes on October 31.

The city has been working overtime to get ready for the event, opening six new underground railway lines over the past two years, training 1.7 million volunteers, adding 4,000 taxis to the city’s fleet and investing $4.2 billion in the exhibition itself.

The event is spread across the two banks of the Huangpu River and covers an area twice the size of Monaco or 20 times the size of the previous expo in Zaragoza, Spain, in 2008. The fair is a golden opportunity for the 190 countries and 50 international organisations taking part to boost their image in China by gaining access to thousands of visitors each day.

Rock paintings The journey through the Angolan pavilion begins with reproductions of images of ancestral signs portrayed in rock paintings

from the Stone Age, found in the south of Angola. Further on there is a replica of the entrance gate of the Kulumbimbi Cathedral. Built in 1491 in Mbanza Kongo, today the capital of the province of Zaire, the cathedral’s ruins are currently being considered by Unesco for listing as a world heritage site.

The reproduction of a pavement covered in a Portuguese-style mosaic leads the visitor to the pavilion’s first space, in front of a reproduction of the façade of Angola’s National Bank. “The idea is to show Angolan architecture as well as the

SEPTEMBER 2010 11

12 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

EXPO 2010

Hold on tight! during the 3D film the chairs shake and water droplets brush the audience’s faces

SEPTEMBER 2010 13

EXPO 2010

importance of the economy in terms of the country’s reconstruction,” said Élio Gamboa as he stood in the shade of a replica redwood tree.

A few metres further on, at the heart of the pavilion, is the Sonangol stand, a reproduction of the company’s headquarters in Luanda. Sonangol has played a key role in the exchanges between China and Angola, through the export of crude oil.

China has been a major force behind the expansion of Angola’s economy as the result of its vast demand for resources.

Trade between the two countries has been growing rapidly; throughout the 1990s bilateral trade hovered between $150 million and $700 million annually. At the start of this century the figure rose to $1.8 billion, quadrupling by the end of 2005 when trade levels reached $6.9 billion. The following year Angola became China’s biggest trade partner in Africa, a relationship currently worth around $12 billion.

Sonangol has been at the centre of this relationship, with crude exports to China making up around 95 per cent of Angola’s total exports and representing China’s biggest import from the country. Beside Sonangol’s stand there are further signs of what the Angolan economy has to offer.

Alongside replicas of typical fruits is the stand of Endiama, the national diamond

“

It’s really interesting and totally different to what we expected Hu Changhong and Hu Yangbiao, businessmen

company of Angola, where the main attraction is a virtual diamond. Diamond mining has also caught the attention of Chinese companies and is an industry likely to spawn further exchanges between the two countries.

With one eye on possible business opportunities that may arise, organisers have built a business centre where visitors can receive details about investment opportunities in Angola, translated into both English and Chinese. This part of the pavilion was created in partnership with the Angola National Private Investment Agency and the Angola Industrial Association.

According to Élio Gamboa, the Angolan commission hopes their presence can present Angola as a country filled with business opportunities as well as an attractive tourist destination.

To strengthen the country’s image as a good holiday option, the pavilion’s organisers have tried to emphasise the high points of a trip to Angola. On one of the pavilion’s walls hangs a giant photograph of the Kalandula Falls; on another there are im-

”

ages of the Mussulo beach.

Angola’s varied landscapes are also on show in a projection room as part of Angola 4D which is shown 60 times per day. The “4D” experience is a term used by the organisers of the pavilion to describe the showing of a 3D movie, seen through 3D glasses provided at the entrance of the projection room, where the chairs shake a little and the viewer is sprayed with water, in an attempt to create a more “realistic experience”. The movie takes the viewer through some of the country’s best-known city and countryside images, such as the Kalandula Falls. The film has become a firm favourite among visitors, with dozens of people queuing for the next screening.

“It’s really interesting and totally different to what we expected,” said Hu Changhong and Hu Yangbiao, businessmen from Wenzhou in the neighbouring province of Zhejiang.

These days, travel between Angola and China is much more convenient than in the past. Since 2008, flights to Angola’s capital have become increasingly Élio Gamboa, director of the Angolan pavilion

14 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

SEPTEMBER 2010 15

Royal family: Rainha Ginga (top) and the King of Congo (below)

16 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

EXPO 2010

Hanging gardens “The people are so warm,” said Xu Xiaoping, a teacher from Shanghai, of her visit to the Angolan pavilion. Among the artists on show are Paulo Flores, Manecas Costa, Tito Paris, Nanutu and Pérola. Angolan artists were also on show at the Shanghai Film Festival which took place in June. The dance group Kina Ku Moxi and the singer and guitarist Kanda performed for the festival’s guests.

The brain behind the Angolan expo is Albina Assis, the national head of Expo Shanghai 2010. Under her command, the

construction of the pavilion was conducted

by Spice Idea, while the décor was provided

by Lunatus, a Barcelona-based design company that became known through events such as the Zaragoza trade fair.

The budget for the Angolan exhibit was around $10 million – a sum described as modest by pavilion communications director Gamboa when compared to the extravagant figures which other countries splashed out. Saudi Arabia, for example, boasts one of the most popular pavilions and spent around $146 million, according to the news network Al Jazeera. The Saudi pavilion was built in a futuristic style, filled with hanging gardens and real palm trees.

Visitor interest in the pavilion has been such that people have queued for up to eight hours in the hot Shanghai summer, to get in.

Just some 70 meters ahead of the Angolan pavilion, stands the African pavilion. The building has a pinkish façade covered with the outlines of a massive baobab

tree and a line of wild animals, as if it were a scene at sunset in the wild. The building covers 26,000 square meters of exhibits on each of the 42 member countries, plus a representation for the African Union.

The British pavilion – themed Building on the Past, Shaping our Future – is also drawing large crowds. Visitors can enter a “seed cathedral” to marvel at how tiny seeds can produce wonders of nature and life. It hopes to raise awareness for the Millennium Seed Bank Project, an international conservation campaign launched by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. France, meanwhile, set off for Shanghai with a collection of masterpieces by artists such as Manet, Cézanne and Rodin.

Close by, Holland created an elevated street in its pavilion, covered with bright orange umbrellas and called Happy Street. In spite of the strong competition, the Angolan pavilion has proved very popular and is likely to translate into a wide-ranging marketing strategy for the future.

Seminal: the British seed cathedral

Getty Images

frequent – there are currently three weekly flights, via Dubai, between Beijing and Luanda.

Angolan culture also has a prominent role in the exhibition. Several groups of artists from Angola and other parts of Africa perform in the pavilion, showing off the variety of local rhythms on a stage erected next to the restaurant and the Mussulo bar.

SEPTEMBER 2010 17

MICROCREDIT

Loan stars Jose Silva Pinto

Microcredit schemes are having remarkable success in lifting Angolans out of poverty and discovering real entrepreneurs âž”

18 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Businesswoman Maria José at her stall in Luanda’s São Paulo market

SEPTEMBER 2010 19

Jose Silva Pinto

Happy customer: Maria JosĂŠ sells a handbag

20 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

MICROCREDIT

A

few years ago, Maria José had a small stall in Luanda’s crowded open air Roque Santeiro market and she struggled to make ends meet. Today, she has a flourishing import business with a permanent spot indoors at São Paulo market where she sells shoes, handbags, belts and other accessories that she ships to Angola by the container-load.

Maria, aged 40, is among a new wave of Angolan entrepreneurs using microfinance to turn small-scale informal selling into a formal profit-making business. A mother of six, she uses the money she borrows at low interest rates to pay for flights to places such as Brazil, China and the United States, from where she brings back cheap items to sell to an Angolan audience hungry for the latest trends from overseas.

A pair of silver sandals bought for $5 in Beijing, sell for $70 in Luanda, so the profit margins are great, once she has paid off her travel expenses and taxes. “Although you make a lot of money on each item, the initial outlay is big, flights are thousands of dollars and you have to pay customs duty on the goods you bring in,” she explained.

Port taxes

“

Ângelo Costa, head of BMF’s credit department, said that the size of the loan was worked out on an individual basis to match the client’s repayment abilities and in conjunction with an investment plan. “The bank has to be responsible. It’s important that clients don’t feel suffocated by the amount of money they have to pay back,” he said. “Maria is a real success story. She made great progress in her business, starting off from a low level and progressing to where she is now.”

BMF offers credit through a range of structured finance packages which are created for certain types of businesses; for example, setting up a bakery, selling soft drinks or running a motorbike-delivery service.

BMF board member Ari Carvalho said: “People give the impression of being very good at business, especially here in Luanda, but often they are buying and selling without really knowing how much they need to make to break even or make a profit. There is no point just selling and hoping you can make money from it; you need some structure.

“We have business analysts who sit down with clients and work out how much they will need and make a spreadsheet setting out a business plan, factoring in expenses, calculating profit, etc. Once we’re satisfied with the plan, then we will offer the credit.

“Sometimes people don’t have realistic business plans – they have no idea about costs or other aspects of running a business. The analyst can make sure they won’t get into trouble – they are almost like a social counsellor, helping them borrow responsibly.”

My business is going very well and I would like to apply for more credit in the future because I have big plans. I want to move out of the market and open a warehouse shop

“If I buy from the United States or Brazil, I carry things on the plane and pay for excess baggage, but if I buy from China, I order a container which means I can bring more. But as well as paying $6,000 for the shipping, there’s $5,000 of port taxes and a further $500 to pay to transport the goods by lorry.”

Maria said she had tried to get a loan at her normal bank but was turned down. “They said I was too much of a risk and I couldn’t afford the Road shows interest rates anyway. Then a friend told me there were banks which As well as seeking out new clients Maria José offered lower-cost loans, so I made an through community road shows, BMF appointment and qualified. It’s been is also working with young people congreat, not just to get the money but also the help with planning my nected to schemes with the Ministry of Public Administration, Embusiness.” ployment and Social Security (MAPESS). The Micro-crédito Amigo Maria has had four loans from Banco BAI Microfinanças package is designed especially for those coming through MAPESS (BMF), which is majority owned by Angola’s largest bank BAI (of training schemes in areas such as bricklaying, carpentry and which Chevron holds a 7 per cent share). It is the country’s only plumbing. dedicated microfinance bank and offers loans from $100 to However, Carvalho admitted that loan repayment was not 100 $50,000, depending on the client’s needs and income-generation per cent: “Around 20 per cent goes over the 60 to 90 day period, but ability. The interest rate is 0.46 to 4 per cent a month, well below we are operating in an informal environment,” he said. “This is our commercial bank rates which can be over 20 per cent. biggest challenge, because people are moving from one address to Maria’s first loan was for $8,000, the second $14,000, the third another and changing their phone numbers. This is something we $20,000 and the most recent $30,000. “My business is going very are working on to strengthen our repayment criteria.” well and I would like to apply for more credit in the future because Aside from the small number of defaulters, he said there had I have big plans,” she said. “I want to move out of the market and been some real success stories. “We’ve seen people coming to us to open a warehouse shop.” get cash to buy cutlery and plates, and a year later they are

”

SEPTEMBER 2010 21

MICROCREDIT

“

The fundamental idea of this programme is to give small and medium producers access to bank credit so they can buy seeds, fertilisers and farming tools which will help them increase the volume of their production Manuel Nunes Júnior, Economy Minister

running their own restaurants and getting more credit to rent land to open a second restaurant.”

John Yale, national director of the NGO World Vision Angola, said giving people access to credit was an important step in assisting them to help themselves out of poverty. In 2005, World Vision started a credit scheme for farmers in the central highlands of Angola, working with state-owned bank BPC which provided a loan fund of $1.2 million.

World Vision helped the farmers get hold of quality seeds and fertilisers and crucially created commercial links with vendors. By January 2009, there were 42 associations made up of 4,320 farmers in Huambo benefiting from the scheme.

Potential Yale said the key to the project’s success was combining credit with technical assistance. “Credit is only one part of the story,” he said.

“You need technical and business skills and, crucially, access to markets because there is no point increasing yield if you have nowhere to sell that produce. But I believe there is huge potential for changing a lot of lives with these schemes.”

He gave an example of a single mother with three children who had been surviving by growing a few vegetables, eating some and selling the rest, making no more than $100 a year. She joins a co-opKixiCrédito training session

”

erative and is able to borrow $375 with which she can buy fertiliser and seeds. Within a few months she has a 2.5 tonne crop of potatoes. At the side of the road, she could sell the crop for $175 a tonne, but by using the networks of the co-operative, she gets transport and takes the potatoes to Benguela where they sell for $500 a tonne.

“In just a short space of time, she has made $1,250, with which she can pay back her credit and buy things for herself and her children, and her life has improved significantly.”

Yale added that in 2008 World Vision, supported in Angola by the Luanda Rotary Club, noted a six-fold increase in crop yields due to the use of fertilisers bought with credit, and the financial gains for the individual families were significant. Building on the success of schemes funded by NGOs like World Vision, the Angolan government is stepping up its microcredit investment.

There are a number of state-funded programmes, some for young people and others for teachers and women in rural areas, but the largest by far is a $350 million scheme where the government will fund a microcredit system with banks such as BPC, BCI, Banco Sol and BMF in conjunction with UNACA (Angolan farmers and peasants association).

“The fundamental idea of this programme is to give small and medium producers access to bank credit so they can buy seeds, fertilisers and farming tools which will help them increase the volume of their production,” said Economy Minister Manuel Nunes Júnior, when he announced details of the scheme earlier this year.

“It is an important step in the government’s programme to diversify the economy, combat hunger and poverty and reduce the regional asymmetries in our country.”

Promise Arlete de Sousa, head of statistics at the Ministry of Finance and a member of the National Micro Finance Commission, added: “The government has made a promise to reduce poverty by 2015 and we see microcredit as a tool for helping us achieve this aim.”

BMF’s Carvalho said: “It’s the old saying that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach a man to fish you will feed him for a lifetime.”

Yale of World Vision concluded: “We need to focus on economic development and income generation, not just giving assistance. People need to be able to take control of their own lives and not be dependent on external aid, whether that’s from governments or from overseas. Microcredit schemes which are supported with technical assistance can achieve that.”

22 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

MICROCREDIT

Give and grow

A solidarity meeting for women who have borrowed money

KixiCrédito was the first microcredit scheme to offer small low-cost loans to people in Angola and has since grown from a charity to a self-funding microfinance business operating in six provinces.

In Kimbundu, one of two Bantu languages, kixi means “giving”. In the old tradition of kixiquila, people would lend each other money or labour, knowing the favour would be repaid to them.

This principle still runs at the heart of KixiCrédito, with two-thirds of loans given out through solidarity groups of up to 15 people from a local area. “Lending to groups works well because there is trust and honour in communities,” said Joaquim Catinda, executive director of KixiCrédito, which has a default rate of only 6 per cent, much lower than the banks.

“If one person can’t make their repayment, the others have to step in.

Each week every member pays a fee of, say, 200 kwanzas [about $2] on top of their repayment and this money is kept and used in case someone defaults. We have rules that people from the same family can’t be in the same loan group because if there is a death or difficulty in that family, it means two people might default and that impacts heavily on the group.”

KixiCrédito borrows money from commercial banks and then offers its clients loans ranging from $100 to $10,000, with typical

monthly interest at around 3 per cent. The average loan is $900, and most people use this money to fund retail or service businesses such as clothes repairers or small restaurants.

“We see many people who used to sell things in their homes getting credit and being able to open small shops and restaurants,” said Catinda. “There is a real entrepreneurial spirit in Angola because people have needed to make their own way and earn a living.”

As with many other microfinance schemes, business plans are at the heart of the loan to make sure people are not overstretching themselves or without a clear plan for the money. Catinda explained: “We have to be careful about how the money is used.

For instance, selling pirate CDs or electrical items on the street is illegal, so we don’t give loans for people to do that. Also, people always ask for more money than they can afford, so we go through their accounts each time and work out what is a suitable amount.”

KixiCrédito credit is currently withdrawn over the bank counter using a letter from the loan agent, but Catinda said the plan was to make direct transfers into clients’ bank accounts. “We need people to learn to use banks in order to manage their money. Because people aren’t used to banks, they go there and withdraw all the credit at once. The same happens with their salaries each month, but we are trying to change this attitude.”

Catinda is passionate about his work and told Universo: “Microcredit has helped many people change their lives for the better. It’s not aid; it’s about giving people access to services so they can make their own way.”

KixiCrédito’s slogan Parceiro nos Negócios or “business partner” underlines that point.

Microfinance was first pioneered in Angola in 1996 by NGO Development Workshop through funding from the Department for International Development (Dfid) – the UK government’s overseas aid fund) among others.

In 1999, the scheme took on the name the Sustainable Livelihoods Project (SLP).

In 2005, it was renamed KixiCrédito and turned into a commercial microfinance business, which is now self-sustainable with a loan portfolio of $9 million.

SEPTEMBER 2010 23

MICROCREDIT António da Silva: “I am a good manager”

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

24 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Jose Silva Pinto

A

ntónio da Silva’s cantina is small and compact, the wooden shelves of the shop neatly stacked with colourful tins, bottles and packets. There are jarsof sweets on the counter, and two tall fridges full of ice-cold drinks hum along with the air conditioning, drowning out the sound of the crackly television perched in the corner.

António, 39, beams with pride as he recalls how his business began with a $250 loan six years ago and explains that he wants to open a second shop and, in the longer term, a pharmacy. “It’s been hard work,” he says, “but worth it. I used to sell things like biscuits and sugar from my house but now I have this business and big plans for more.”

António, who lives in Cassequel, beside Luanda’s airport and around the corner from his shop, got his loan through KixiCrédito, Angola’s original microfinance scheme which began in 1996. “I did have a bank account at the time,” he says, “but I never even thought about asking them for a loan. I knew they would turn me down.”

António spent his first loan on two months’ rent for his shop and some stock. A few months afterwards, he was given a second loan of $500 and a few years later a third for $900. In that time he had made enough profit on the items he sold to have bought the shop outright, at a cost of $4,000, install the air-conditioning system and purchase two refrigerator units and a chest freezer.

The shop – which he has called Sapchot after the local area – is open from 7.30 in the morning until 10 at night. António’s wife, with whom he has a four-year-old daughter, does the morning shift and he takes over in the afternoon and evening. “I go to buy things once a week,” he says, “usually from Roque Santeiro or from another big market. Sometimes you can make a lot from things when you buy in bulk, sometimes not, it just depends.”

Giving an example, he says that he can buy a pack of 24 tins of mushrooms for 2,150 kwanzas (about $23) and sell the individual tins for 150 kwanzas each, making a total profit of 1,450 kwanza (almost $16) on the original purchase. “Of course, I have to pay for my transport to bring the stock back here,” he says, “and other costs like running my generator for the electricity which is about 15,000 kwanzas (about $163) a month. But I think I am a good manager and that is why my business is a success.

“Every night I cash up to see exactly what I have taken and calculate at the end of the week X and Y to see what my profits are.

I make sure I take an amount each day from the till to put aside to repay my loan; that is very important.”

He is now applying for a fourth loan of $10,000 to fund his extension plans. As the sign says on his shop door, thanks to KixiCrédito, he is very much aberto (“open”) for business.

SEPTEMBER 2010 25

TRANSPORT

SPLASH OUT

ON A CAB Water taxis will make commuting to work in Luanda faster and prettier ➔

S

parkling blue water stretching for miles, and in the distance the palm trees of Mussulo Island swaying in the gentle sea breeze. That’s the view most people see from their car windows as they sit for up to three hours a day in traffic queues on the Samba Road, crawling their way into Luanda city from the south.

Many workers are forced to leave for work at 5am just to beat the congestion. But now frustrated commuters have a chance to get closer to that view and see more of their families, thanks to a new water-taxi service which is offering a 35-minute trip by boat from Luanda Sul into the city.

26 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Angolan-owned Fast Sea Transport plans to operate 30-nautical-mile return trips from its base at Futungo to Luanda’s port, at the Ilha de Luanda, with its popular bars and restaurants, and Sonils, where most of the oil companies are based.

Stressful “People are suffering psychologically because of this traffic,” said Ernesto Arenas, Fast Sea Transport’s general manager.

“They are getting up very early and not able to see their families properly except at weekends. This is very stressful and means they have no quality of life. We want to give

people their life back and less hassle.”

The company has six blue-and-white water taxis which were specially designed in South Africa. They have two 250-horsepower Suzuki engines and can carry 26 people, 24 passengers plus the pilot and his deputy. Inside, there are rows of forwardfacing roomy white benches and the option of air conditioning or open sunroofs and windows.

“It’s like a bus but on the sea,” said Ricardo Bocanegra Garcia, the company’s commercial director. “When the windows are closed, it’s very quiet inside and you can talk on your phone or even use your

Kamene M Traรงa

Manuel da Costa, head of operations at Fast Sea Transport

SEPTEMBER 2010 27

TRANSPORT

laptop. And you have a wonderful panoramic view of the coastline. It’s a very nice trip and, best of all, we are completely out of the normal hectic city life.”

Zipped Universo was treated to a test ride. As we zipped along watching the coastal landmarks fly by, Ricardo said: “Look, after just a short time we can already see the Mausoleum and in the distance behind it there’s the Ilha. If we’d been going by car, we’d not even be at Samba yet.”

He was right; the boat was significantly quicker than our trip to Futungo from the city and the sea surprisingly calm. “The water is very flat,” he said. “There’s no

28 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

“

And you have a wonderful panoramic view of the coastline. It’s a very nice trip and, best of all, we are completely out of the normal hectic city life

”

Ricardo Garcia, Fast Sea Transport

jumping. It’s very smooth, more like a lake than sea. These are perfect conditions for this type of service.”

The boat’s radio crackles and beeps.

“That’s the port picking up our signal,” said

Colombian-born Ricardo. “We have radio links with the port and with our base at Futungo, and all the most modern equipment such as GPS and deep sensors.”

Pointing out the rows of life jackets and

TRANSPORT

Docking Back on dry land, docking at the company’s neat wooden jetty, we are given a tour of the air-conditioned waiting area which Ernesto and Ricardo hope will soon be full of office workers using the water taxis.

“We are aiming at companies to use this service because many people, especially from oil industry, are living in Luanda Sul. More people are moving to the south because the conditions are better. There are

new houses and shopping centres, but they have the problem with traffic to get into town. We are trying to give people a better quality of life,” said Ricardo.

The water-taxi service, however, comes at a price. Off-peak return tickets start at $20 a day, rising to $35 for a peak-time return from Futungo to Sonils. But Ricardo said corporate discounts were available and there were packages for people who booked for a month or longer.

“Our costs are very high. Running the boats and paying the maritime charges is very expensive,” he said, “so that is why our fares are quite high. But in the longer term we want to make this service available to as many as possible – something for everyone in the city to use and enjoy.”

Bruno Rodrigues, logistics manager of SevenSeas Angola, a subsidary of SubSea 7, said it was a price worth paying and not that much more than hiring cars, which can work out at $10,000 per person per month plus the cost of fuel and a driver.

Excellent “Eighty per cent of our guys are living in Luanda Sul, so something like this could be excellent for us,” he told Universo. “We have people leaving our company because of all the travelling. It is so stressful. Some spend three hours a day in traffic and complain about their quality of life.”

Bruno, who makes the daily commute from the south into the city, gets up most days at 4am to beat the traffic jams and said he would welcome the chance to sleep longer and not arrive at work exhausted.

Angolan Manuel da Costa is head of operations at Fast Sea Transport, overseeing the crew of pilots and sailors. “I really think a lot of people are going to use this service because it’s so much better than sitting in traffic or getting up at 4am to avoid it,” he said.

Water taxis have been operating in cities like London, New York, Sydney and Dubai for years, so why not Luanda? “It’s about time,” said Ricardo. “It’s a simple idea; I don’t know why someone didn’t think of it before.”

...or take the train

iStockphoto

safety rings, Ernesto, a Cuban who has been in Angola for 14 years, added: “Safety is our first policy. The sea is very calm here but we make sure we take all the appropriate safety measures.”

President José Eduardo dos Santos has announced plans to build the first metro rail system in the capital to meet the demand for efficient public transport.

Currently, Luanda has only a single rail line that runs from Musseques station, just outside central Luanda, to the municipality of Viana, 20km to the east.

Agostinho Neto University has submitted a feasibility study to the country’s authorities calling for three more rail lines to be integrated into the existing Viana-Luanda line. The proposal has lines running north-south, westeast and to major city locations, said university engineer Henrique Capeca.

The object is to cater for Luanda’s growing population for the next ten years. The new metro will interconnect major destinations such as the university campus, two airports, the seaport and the town centre, through a proposed central station. Several smaller stations will be combined with taxis ranks, bus stops and maritime docks that service other town and country regions.

The project aims to dissuade people from driving to work and cut traffic noise and air pollution. Part one could be implemented in four years, but more studies are to be done to estimate costs and see whether the authorities prefer an underground or a surface rail system. “The time is right to go ahead with the project,” said Capeca.

Claro Sokandi

SEPTEMBER 2010 29

FASHION

DRESSED TO

IMPRESS

Kamene M Traça

Angolan designers are winning plaudits for their fusion of African and international style, as the country’s fashion industry takes off ➔

30 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

A model sashays down the Moda Luanda catwalk

SEPTEMBER 2010 31

International acclaim: LucrĂŠcia Moreira

32 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

FASHION

O

n an unremarkable street in Luanda’s Vila Alice neighbourhood, behind a dull brown door, quite remarkable things are happening.

Up two flights of narrow tiled stairs a group of men are huddled over rattling sewing machines, passing each other large panels of vibrantly-coloured African cloth. Across the narrow corridor in a tiny office, piles of patterned materials are stacked floor to ceiling, and down a flight of stairs, light pours in through a wide shop window where mannequins stand, waiting to be dressed.

Jose Silva Pinto

Leading light This is the nerve centre of Lucrécia Moreira’s design empire – Criações e Confecções – where ideas are formed, fashions made and deals done.

Moreira has been a leading light on Angola’s fashion scene for two decades and her fusion of African and European styles has won her national and international accolades, as well as a celebrity client base which includes Angola’s First Lady Ana Paula dos Santos.

Moreira’s success is part of a growing and increasingly confident fashion industry in Angola. She recently showed her latest collection alongside other innovative designers such as Ginga Neto and Me Sente (whom we profile on pages 35 and 37) at the annual Moda Luanda show.

This show and the other high-profile event Angola Fashion Week are bigger than they have ever been. Moda Luanda organiser Karina Barbosa said the increased interest was a sign of the growth in the country’s fashion industry. “When we started it was more about enthusiasm from a small number of designers, but now we are seeing very professional collections with a lot of originality and quality,” she said.

“Angolans are very good consumers of fashion. You can see it just by walking down any street; they like to dress well and look good. You can see all the new boutiques opening in Luanda – this is a big industry. When the Hugo Boss store opened a few years back, it made the most sales on its opening night of any Hugo Boss store in the world, which gives you

“

When we started it was more about enthusiasm from a small number of designers, but now we are seeing very professional collections with a lot of originality and quality

”

Karina Barbosa

an indication of the appetite people here have for fashion in Angola.”

Traditional roots Lucrécia Moreira’s appetite for fashion began as a child when she used to make clothes for friends. After going to Canada and studying at a fashion school in Toronto in the 1990s, she returned to Angola to launch her first collection, making everything at home on one sewing machine. Today, her workshop has 25 machines and she has plans to open a larger factory outside the city centre to increase production and get her clothes into stores around Angola, in other parts of Africa and beyond.

“Although I am going to continue with high-end pieces, I also want to launch a prêt-à-porter range which will be more accessible to more people,” she said.

Moreira’s work is a fusion of influences. She likes to use traditional African fabrics, patterns and colours with European flourishes to create a modern style but one with its roots in tradition.

Explaining her style, Moreira said: “The education that we had during the long years of Portuguese colonisation did not allow us to interpret our own culture, so SEPTEMBER 2010 33

FASHION

“

”

I want to make a collection designed where the textiles are stamped as 100 per cent Angolan

Jose Silva Pinto

Angolans were not used to wearing African clothes.

“But through travelling around the continent I started to see that people in other African countries used African-style clothes and identified themselves as Africans through their clothes. It was from there that I started to create African fashion.

And from just my second show I started to make a name for myself and people started to want my clothes.”

Accessing textiles, she admitted, remained a challenge and she hoped that recent investment into Angola’s once-flourishing cotton industry would one day allow her to buy locally-made fabric. “We are a country that used to produce cotton but now we rely on imported material,” she said.

“I want to make a collection designed by me where the textiles are stamped as 100 per cent Angolan. But right now that is not possible, and relying on imports also increases the price of the finished garment.”

Fellow Angolan designer Nadir Tati agreed price was a challenge in selling Angolan-made pieces but said things were moving in the right direction. “We are competing against people who are importing cheap clothes in bulk from overseas and then selling them on the street at low

34 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

prices,” she said. “But slowly things are changing and we are getting stronger at marketing.”

Fashion week There was certainly no shortage of interest in Tati’s latest collection at Angola Fashion Week which ran over four days in June.

There were eight Angolan designers altogether, including Tati, Marius, Tina Souvenir and Shanguiny Vungulipy. Luandan shops such as Casa Paris, Sónia Boutique and Ellus also showed off their latest collections.

From overseas came Portugal-based Storytailors, Louis de Gama from the UK and Alexandre Dutra from Brazil, and there was a special day dedicated to children’s wear. “There are many people coming to Angola right now and we are seeing a big exchange of experiences and ideas,” said Tati.

For co-organiser Felipe Dylong, events like Angola Fashion Week are not just a spectacle but the key to promoting local business and creating jobs. “It’s about more than the clothes and the glamour that you see,” he said. “It’s about business too. We had more than 70 models taking part and then all the sponsors and the exhibitors, and this generates a lot of interest.

“Fashion is growing in Angola. Small

Lucrécia Moreira

factories and labels are getting bigger; there’s a chain effect with more jobs being created here in the country.”

Model Cael Pascoal is 25 and studying law in South Africa, but she came back to Luanda to be part of Angola Fashion Week.

“Fashion is really growing in Angola. It was slow to start but now it’s really taking off and we’re getting a scene like you have elsewhere,” she said. “We’ve seen people such as Shunnoz & Tekasala showing their collections in Lisbon and it’s not going to be long before we are seeing more Angolans on more international catwalks.”

Catwalk shows are excellent ways for Angolan models to get noticed. Karina Barbosa, who used to model for Elite Model Management in Portugal, takes bookings for her models from all over the world including South Africa’s Face Models, Storm (the agency which found Kate Moss), Portugal’s Face Models and Central Models.

She said Angolan models were in big demand and her girls Joana Bunga, Verónica Barros and Carina Andrade were building increasingly international portfolios.

The energy within Angola’s fashion and modelling scene is certainly growing – expect some Angolan influence soon on a high street or in a magazine near you.

FASHION

Kamene M Traça

JEAN GENIUS

S

he was named after Angola’s famous 17th-century Queen Ginga and now has a shop on, most fittingly, Rua Rainha Ginga. But there is more to Ginga Neto than her name.

Her boutique Mahinda Prestige is a fashion landmark in Luanda. It is one of the few shops in the country where you can buy Angolan designed and produced clothes. The big attraction this season is Ginga’s new Jeanswear Collection, the first Angolan denim range, which comes with unique symbols of Chokwe sand paintings on the pockets.

“My inspiration in creating jeans came out of the recognition that the economic crisis has affected many people and that we live in an era where we need to reconnect with simple and practical clothes,” said Ginga. “By creating this line I wanted to be close to young people, who make up the majority of the Angolan pop-

ulation, and give them a fashion which identifies with our culture and accompanies us in our everyday life.”

Ginga was born in Frankfurt in 1962 and spent the first seven years of her life between Germany and Austria, before going to Tanzania and Zambia. She moved to Angola for the first time as a teenager after the country’s independence in 1975.

Ginga, whose full married name is Ginga Isabel Neto e Costa de Almeida, began her love affair with fashion as a child when she watched her mother making clothes. “My mother had studied fashion design and I used to watch her make garments for her friends,” she said.

“With the leftovers of fabrics I sometimes tried to copy her and made dresses for my dolls.” This interest grew and continued as a sideline to her studies when she moved to Paris to study languages at the

Sorbonne. In 1990, Ginga married and moved back to Angola with her husband Francisco and three sons aged 17, 16 and 15. She began to take part in Moda Luanda seven years ago and what was a hobby became a full-time job.

Like many of her peers, Ginga relies on imported material for her designs and has travelled to India, Belgium, the United States and Brazil and across Africa looking for the right textiles. “The biggest difficulty is to find good fabrics,” she said.

“Not having a proper fashion industry in Angola is also a setback. We still depend very much on foreign support to bring to the market products with international selling standards. “There is certainly a lot of talent in Angola and I’m always fascinated to see what our designers have to offer. What we need now is a good fashion magazine to help us promote and sell our clothes at competitive prices.”

SEPTEMBER 2010 35

Pictures: Kamene M Traรงa

FASHION

36 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

FASHION

PASSION FOR FASHION

A

velino Nascimento – who calls himself Me Sente (“Feel me”) – brought a dazzle of glamour to this year’s Moda Luanda fashion show with his Gold of the Future collection.

My inspiration was gold and the night, so I went for gold and black,” said the 23year-old, wearing oversized sunglasses with white plastic frames. “I love glamour and designers like Valentino, Dolce & Gabbana and Louis Vuitton and to see a well-dressed woman is a wonderful spectacle.”

Still high from the rave reviews of his Moda Luanda appearance and a spread in the weekly glossy magazine Caras, Me Sente, who hails from the modest Nelito Soares neighbourhood in Luanda, is dreaming of Europe. Waving his arms in a flourish, he said: “It’s my dream to go to Milan and London and Paris, first to study a course in fashion and then to take my clothes to the catwalks. I want to show off my clothes but also show Angola to the rest of the world.”

Despite his success, Me Sente has had no formal fashion training and learnt his trade from his mother who used to be a seamstress in Angola before independence in 1975. With clients queuing up for a piece of Me Sente, the roles have reversed and his mother now works for him, helping him to keep up with the demand for orders.

“I had to learn from my mother,” he said.

“There are no dedicated fashion schools here and that is something we really need. But at the same time there is a real energy here.

“Fashion in Angola is in a stage of growth, and it is developing a lot. I see it as a fashion which is inventing itself from within.

The country is developing and growing, so fashion is growing with it.”

But as passionate as Me Sente is about his job, he also acknowledges it is not all plain sailing. “Working in fashion means you need to make many sacrifices,” he said. “I have to work very hard. I don’t have any sponsorship or help from anyone, so I have to work on my own. I have to invest a lot in materials to make my clothes, and I have to promote my brand. But I am always saying that tomorrow will be better and I will succeed.

“Fashion in Angola is not easy. There is no formal training, so everything I’ve done I’ve had to do myself. But I think my work will go far because I believe I have foresight, and I hope that I’ll be able to keep expanding and one day everyone will be wearing my brand.

“One day Angola could be a fashion leader in Africa. But we need textile factories and courses to train people. You look at somewhere like South Africa and the support that is there; we need that support here in Angola.

“At the moment, people here don’t see fashion as an academic subject worth teaching. This is something we need to fight for.

There’s a long way to go, but we will get there.”

SEPTEMBER 2010 37

➔

38 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Caribbean fields Sonangol has signed a memorandum of understanding with Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and Cuban state oil company Cupet to develop oil fields in Venezuela, above. The Migas and Melones Oeste fields are in the state of Anzoátegui, 23km from the city of El Tigre. It is estimated that the wells will produce 20,000 barrels per day in the initial phase with a cumulative output over five years of 95 million barrels. PDVSA has a 60 per cent share and Sonangol and Cupet each have 20 per cent.

Oil exhibit The past, present and predicted future of Angola’s oil industry could become the subject of a new museum. The idea is being developed with the help of experts from Norway, which has had an oil museum for 13 years.

Estevão Pedro, director of international exchange at the Petroleum Ministry, welcomed the idea and told Jornal de Angola: “A museum of the dimension that Angola intends to build – of the highest scientific, educational and cultural level – will be beneficial for study visits and comparing the past and present of the oil industry in Angola. We are in the phase of identifying partners and establishing the terms of reference for the project.”

Photolibrary

ngola is currently producing 1.79 million barrels of oil per day, but could increase that to 2 million in the next two years. That’s according to Oil Minister José Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos who was the guest of honour at the petroleum day of Angola’s annual trade fair FILDA in July.

Botelho de Vasconcelos said the Angolan government and other members of Opec (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) were happy with the price of oil at between $70 and $80 a barrel, a level which satisfied producers and consumers.

Angola currently has nearly a dozen oil blocks in operation and many more waiting to be explored, but the long-awaited next auction is not expected until 2011.

In the following pages we survey the present and the future of the oil industry in Angola. First, we look at Angoflex, the first Angolan company to produce material for an oil industry project in another country, in this case Ghana. The project is hopefully the first of many, and will cement Angola’s importance in the continent. And secondly we investigate the excitement surrounding the possibility of pre-salt riches – undiscovered treasure under Angolan waters.

Chico Sanchez/epa/Corbis

Sonangol news briefing A

NEWS

Book prize

Sailor school Sonangol is investing $60 million in building the country’s first nautical school to train sailors and seanavigation support staff. The first phase of construction was due to begin this year and work on the school itself scheduled for June 2012. Over the next five years Sonangol expects to train about 400 Angolan staff at the site in Sumbe, Kwanza Sul.

The deadline for Sonangol’s Grand Literature Prize has passed and 45 entries have been submitted from across Portuguese-speaking Africa.

Fifteen works are from Angola, seven from Mozambique, nine from Guinea-Bissau, nine from Cape Verde and five from São Tomé and Príncipe. The competition, which began in 1987, is being run in conjunction with the Angolan Writers’ Union (UEA) and has a top prize of $50,000. The judging panel is made up of Angolan writers Manuel Muanza and Cornélio Caley, Carlos Paradona from Mozambique, Francisco Conduto de Pina of Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verdean Corsino Fortes and Frederico Gustavo dos Anjos from São Tomé and Príncipe. The winner will be announced on February 25 next year, Sonangol’s 35th Anniversary.

No more queues Queuing for petrol will soon be a thing of the past, thanks to a campaign by Sonangol to build new filling stations. During 2010, 24 new posts are expected to be opened across the country, of which 14 are already up and running in the capital Luanda. Sonangol is also working to reduce the unsafe practice of people buying petrol in jerry cans to sell by the side of the road.

Angola’s new oil refinery will come into force in 2014 and create more than 1,000 jobs, according to Oil Minister José Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos.

The facility in Lobito, currently under construction, will have a capacity to process 115,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) and greatly reduce Angola’s reliance on refined crude. The minister said it was hoped that the refinery would eventually produce 200,000 bpd.

Bank lessons Sonangol is supporting a new financial services academy which was launched in Angola in July. Academia Millennium Atlântico is aimed at teaching people working in the local banking sector about the Angolan financial system.

Other organisations involved are BPA (Banco Privado Atlântico) and Banco Millennium Angola. A number of new laws have been passed to increase regulation and improve the operation of Angola’s banking sector.

iStockphoto.com

Refinery jobs

All clear A new oil dictionary in Portuguese has been published to help Angolan students entering the petroleum industry to understand the technical terms of the business.

The 635-page reference book was created through a partnership between Sonangol, Portuguese oil services company Partex, Brazilian state oil company Petrobras and the Brazilian Institute of Oil and Biofuel. It was launched at Sonangol’s headquarters in a ceremony presided over by Maria Cândida Teixeira, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology.

Oil Minister José Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos, Petrobras Angola manager

Manoel Murilo Silva, and Alfredo Santos and António Pinho of Partex.

Speaking after the launch, Sonangol board member Fernando Roberto told Universo: “This is a partnership of Angola, Portugal and Brazil and the idea was to translate technical language, which is often in English, into Portuguese. It is very difficult to find direct translations for technical terms and this dictionary will make this possible.”

The dictionary, co-authored by Eloi Fernández y Fernández, Oswaldo A. Pedrosa Júnior and António Correia de Pinho, is published by Lexikon and also available in Portugal and Brazil.

SEPTEMBER 2009 39

Carlos Moco

40 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

NEWS

PIPELINE TO PROSPERITY Angola is now manufacturing oil industry equipment for other African countries âž”

SEPTEMBER 2010 41

NEWS

Track record “In the case of the Jubilee project, the flowlines were initially to come from the United States. However Technip, the foreign partner in Angoflex, decided to entrust their fabrication to the Angolan spoolbase, a bold move but justified by the previous positive track record with Technip.”

Denoun said there was a strong “wish” to win more contracts and that Gabon, Congo and Equatorial Guinea could be potential areas for business.

Angoflex was created in 2002 as a joint venture between Sonangol EP (30 per cent) and French engineering firm Technip (70 per cent) with a view to building and operating a factory to produce deepwater steeltube umbilicals (bundles of tubes, electric cables and optic fibres used to remotely control and operate subsea hardware).

Three years later, the spoolbase at Barra do Dande, 40km north of Luanda, was opened to manufacture pipelines for reel-lay installation (rigid pipes which are literally bent and wound on a reel before their offshore installation from a ship) for deepwater oil and gas production systems.

Spanning close to 80 hectares, the spoolbase is the most advanced of its kind in Africa and it was here that the pipes were made for Ghana’s Jubilee project.

42 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

“

The site’s first contract was for the Total Dália field in Block 17 and involved the production of 41km of gas and water-injection pipes and 21km of production flowlines. On the back of the success of the Total work, which netted only a 0.7 per cent weld repair rate, came a contract for 53km of plasticlined injection pipes for BP’s Greater Plutonio development in Block 18.

Then came Jubilee, and now Angoflex, having completed Pazflor flowlines for Total Block 17, is working on injection lines for BP’s Block 31 which Denoun says should be completed in the first quarter of 2011.

Base steel tubes measuring either 12 or 24 metres are imported from Mexico and Brazil. They arrive at the Dande spoolbase by ship, are offloaded onto its jetty and taken on site.

After various operations, including bevelling, welding and joint coating, the pipe stalks can measure up to 3km in length. When completed, they are moved to a storage area at the centre of the base, next to a roller feeding line which will eventually take them down to the jetty and back out to sea.

Several times during operations, Technip’s Deep Blue ship moors at Dande ready to take on the pipe stalks so that they can be transported to the oil and gas development blocks. The Deep Blue is one of the world’s largest purpose-built ultra-deepwater pipelay and subsea construction vessels.

We are very proud of this achievement – to manufacture something for the first time for use outside of Angola

”

Stephane Denoun, Angoflex general manager

Sea views On board are two giant reels onto which the steel pipes are spooled, a convenient way to carry great lengths in a small space. When the vessel reaches its destination, it then unwinds, straightens and lays the rigid flowlines onto the seabed.

As well as the various pipelines, the flowline end terminations (FLET) are also manufactured at Dande and there are longer-term plans to extend the capacity of the site.

There are typically more than 400 people working at the spoolbase each day, and a large majority of them live and sleep in the accommodation area.

The base has a large restaurant, a medical clinic, a recreation area and, as can be expected, excellent sea views. Seventy

Carlos Moco

A

Sonangol joint venture has become the first Angolan company to supply material for an oil industry project in another country.

Twenty kilometres of flowlines manufactured by Angoflex at its spoolbase near Luanda have been shipped to Ghana where they have been used in the Jubilee project, the country’s first deepwater oil development.

The order, which came in late last year and was completed on schedule and on budget, marks an important step forward in Angola’s manufacturing and exporting capacity.

Stephane Denoun, Angoflex general manager, said: “We are very proud of this achievement – to manufacture something for the first time for use outside of Angola.

It would be fantastic to be able to perform more work for other countries in West Africa; there is definitely a market there.”

Carlos Moco

Reel time: the Deep Blue takes pipes on board

SEPTEMBER 2010 43

NEWS

Justino Daniel

Honario Eduardo

João Felipe Neto

H C

argo handler Justino Daniel, 45, says he is proud to work for such a successful Angolan company. “I used to work in a plastics factory in Viana,” he said, “but this job is better.”

He has been at Angoflex for over a year, having got the job through a training scheme run by MAPESS (Ministry of Public Administration, Employment and Social Security).

Daniel said he was encouraged that specialised work was now being done inside Angola by local staff.

“It’s good for our country that the work which used to be done outside is now being done here. Now we have access to knowledge that we didn’t have before and we’re seeing more young Angolans working here.”

onario Eduardo, 25, joined Angoflex straight from school five years ago and after three years in logistics is now leading the spoolbase human resources team.

His job involves responsibility for employment contracts for national staff, checking salary payments and dealing with any other issues. As an Angolan member of staff, he is in the front line of making sure that the large numbers of local workers are happy in their positions. “I really enjoy my work and I would like to continue in human resources,” he said. Eduardo, is studying management and administration through a long-distance course.

Norberto Lima

A

s logistics co-ordinator at the Dande spoolbase, it is Norberto Lima’s job to make sure everything runs smoothly across the 78 hectare site.

“I’m overseeing the whole base,” he said. “That’s everything from the main entrance gate all the way to the jetty, including all the transport and accommodation.

It’s about making sure everyone is happy and that their needs are being met, but I would say safety is the most important element of my work.”

Lima, 39, who studied business administration at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, has been at

44 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

the company for nearly two years, following previous administrative roles at Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht and Coca-Cola.

He lives on-site for stretches of 15 days, returning home to his wife and four children who live in Luanda in between assignments. “I joined Angoflex because I wanted to keep moving forward in my career,” said Lima, who was born in Malanje.

“It’s not always an easy job as we have up to 600 people a day here to look after, but I feel very proud to be part of this project and I really enjoy my work.”

J

oão Felipe Neto Kipoco has been working at Angoflex’s Dande spoolbase since November.

Responsible for cleaning the pipelines before they are passed through the welding station, Kipoco, 27, has undergone various training courses to equip him for the job.

He is from Luanda and used to have an office position. Now he works shifts of 28 days on and 28 days off. “It’s a good experience to work here and I like being part of this team. We’re doing quality work.

Eventually I would like to learn to be a solderer in the welding section”

NEWS

Tube station

Pictures: Carlos Moco

per cent of the Dande workforce population is Angolan, the rest being made up of a number of different nationalities, including French, Norwegian, Filipino, Polish, British, American and Indian.

Site manager Philippe Monti said the continual aim was to reduce the expatriate headcount with Angolan staff. “It’s very important to transfer the knowledge and to train our Angolan workforce,” he said.

“Gradually we are filling the positions with Angolan staff. I’m especially pleased to see so many Angolans working on the welding stations; nearly the whole team is Angolan.

Philippe Monti, site manager

“Creating local jobs is also a question of respect. You cannot just come, do the job and leave; you need to come with the approach to transfer knowledge to people so that they can carry on the job afterwards by themselves and keep this site living for years. So it’s important that we develop a core of experienced and well trained people.”

With so many people on the base, safety is the top priority. All visitors must take part in an interactive video presentation and test before being allowed onto the site and safety gloves, overalls, glasses and hats must be worn at all times in the production areas.

Earlier in the year, the Angoflex Dande spoolbase underwent a full quality management system audit where the departments were assessed on their management performance, operation performance and all other quality management related areas. The process resulted in the site being awarded the ISO 9001.

Monti added: “We take quality very seriously on site and we are very proud of this achievement.”

It is a long and bumpy ride from Luanda to Angoflex’s spoolbase at Barra do Dande.

When we arrive, it looks more like an aircraft landing strip than a fabrication yard – a narrow dusty patch of white in the middle of an endless stretch of bushy mandioca plants.

The first thing you see, once your eyes have adjusted to the brightness of the white dust in the sunshine, are the pipes – lots of very long pipes, some up to 3km long, which stretch the length of the access road down to the site headquarters.

On one side you have a block of offices and support services and beyond that the living accommodation and recreational area. At the end, at the bottom of a steep slope, is a long jetty which stretches down to the sea, waiting for its next cargo to arrive or depart.

The pipes arrive by ship, then are unloaded and stored in a large storage area ready for assembling. They are carried by forklift truck to an entry bay where they are rolled onto a conveyor system. One by one, the pipes are lifted up for their ends to be bevelled and warmed-up ahead of welding. Then they are inserted into the firing line which takes them to the welding stations – a long narrow shed full of sophisticated equipment.

This technology maximises local-labour content compared to other pipelay technologies as all welds are done onshore.

From a computer console, an operator propels the pipes along the production line to a centralising mechanism that joins the pipes’ ends together. The machine then stops to allow teams of welders to work on the joints.

There are four welding stations along the production line. After welding, the joints are X-rayed to ensure that the welds are of good quality. Next, the pipes are blasted and heated. Depending on the type of pipe, a layer of paint may be sprayed on and plastic tape or some special joint coating applied.

Finally, the finished pipe stalk emerges from the shed and passes through a water jet to cool the joints. It is then moved into a storage area before being moved down the jetty to a waiting vessel, which will take it to its offshore destination.

SEPTEMBER 2010 45

NEWS

TREASURE IN THE SALT

CELLAR A large amount of undiscovered oil may lie under Angola’s deep-sea salt layer, and exploration companies are getting excited ➔

46 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Terry Vine

SEPTEMBER 2010 47

NEWS

“

”

There is a potential for pre-salt in large areas of Angola and a lot of interest from within the industry

A

ngola and Brazil share a Portuguese colonial heritage and a love of music and dancing. The two countries also have a very similar geological make-up, having once been joined before the continental drift millions of years ago formed the Atlantic Ocean and the separate continents of South America and Africa.

In Brazil, it is estimated that there may be between five and eight billion barrels of recoverable oil from below the salt layer – known as pre-salt – in its waters. So attention is naturally turning to Angola, to see if it also has serious undiscovered treasure.

Norway’s StatoilHydro and Brazil’s Petrobras are among the companies that have publicly admitted interest in pre-salt exploration in Angola, although many more are said to be keen, and Sonangol chairman Manuel Vicente has confirmed the company is preparing a pre-salt strategy.

Discoveries

Louis Bencze

“There is a potential for pre-salt in large areas of Angola and a lot of interest from within the industry,” says Tom Ruffer, geoscience

48 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Tom Ruffer, Geoscience Manager, Esso Angola

manager for Esso Angola. “The interest is driven by recent discoveries made offshore Brazil. We know Brazil and Angola were once joined, so the hydrocarbons should be very similar and that has created a lot of excitement.”

So what is pre-salt oil? It is oil formed in the same way as normal hydrocarbons by the compression of organic matter at high pressure and temperatures, which is then sealed into a permeable rock creating a reservoir.

During the continental drift between Africa and South America, a layer of salt formed and it is the area of hydrocarbons beneath this which is known as pre-salt or subsalt. Part of the reason for the interest surrounding pre-salt is the anticipation of significant reserves which have been totally unexplored in Angola.

Manoel Murilo Silva, general director of Brazilian state-owned Petrobras in Angola, says his company has long-term plans to explore pre-salt layers in Angola. “Angola has the same geological model as Brazil. We hope that we have the same successes with presalt that we’ve seen in Brazil, and we hope we can bring our experiences and technology to Angola.”

NEWS

How did the salt layer form to create pre- and post-salt oil?

Angola Brazil

Millions of years ago, the continents of Africa and South America were one land mass, as the illustration on the left shows. As they split apart to form the two continents, illustrated right, depressions were formed which created river systems. Over time, water from the open ocean began to flood into these shallow channels and the liquid evaporated in the sun, leaving a thick layer of salt. This salt layer acted like a seal over reservoirs of plankton, which at high temperatures and pressure formed oil and gas, and is known as the pre-salt layer. As the continental drift continued, the process of compressing and burying organic matter continued, but this time on top of the salt layer, creating what is known as the post-salt layer.

In a recent interview, Bjorn Albert Rasmussen, head of StatoilHydro in Angola, also acknowledged the huge pre-salt potential in Angola but cautioned: “It carries a very high risk and we have to be aware of that. Just like in Brazil, it will be very costly to drill these wells.”

The financial risk to which Rasmussen refers is a result of the physical and engineering challenges. Esso’s Ruffer says that the salt layers play havoc with seismic instruments used to explore a reservoir for hydrocarbon oil and gas before drilling. “Because it has this plastic consistency, it has an irregular surface and tends to deflect the seismic signals in many directions, making it difficult to image beneath the salt layer,” he explains.

Not knowing what is there before you drill when there is a higher than normal chance that the reservoir could be empty is an expensive and risky strategy. “When you’re investing $100 million or more to drill an exploration well, you want to minimise the risks and the unknowns,” says Ruffer.

It is thanks to improved seismic technology creating better images, and more advanced computer systems able to do finer calcu-

lations to improve data quality, that the industry has felt able to take the pre-salt risk.

Only in recent years has technology been available to drill in deep and ultra-deep waters at depths of 2,000 to 3,000 metres, where pre-salt reservoirs are typically found. “Twenty years ago, we would not have even thought about trying to explore pre-salt, but as technology has evolved it is becoming possible,” says Ruffer.

Angola-based geologist Tako Koning believes Angola’s pre-salt reserves will ensure its future as a leading global oil producer. In a paper he presented last year to the Luanda chapter of the Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts, Koning said: “The recent giant oil discoveries in Brazil in the pre-salt reservoirs, such as Tupi and Jubarte, have major geological and economic implications for the pre-salt of Angola which in the deepwater has been minimally evaluated by drilling.

“Accordingly, the favourable geological conditions present in Angola will likely ensure that the country will continue to experience many more discoveries and remain as one of Africa’s major oil producers for decades to come.”

SEPTEMBER 2010 49

The Black Rocks of Pungo Andongo

Jose Silva Pinto

Rising up majestically from the open plains below, the Black Rocks of Pungo Andongo – known locally as the Pedras Negras de Pungo Andongo – are one of the main tourist sites of Malanje province.

They are steeped in history and intrigue, since no-one really knows how the colossal rocks, some up to 200 metres high, came to be here as their geological formation is out of keeping with the surrounding savannah.

Legend has it that in the sixteenth century Pungo Andongo was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Ndongo ruled by King Ngola Kiluanji and Queen Ginga Mbandi. Rock carvings found there are said to represent footprints of the fleeing queen who was disturbed by soldiers as she bathed in a stream at the foot of the stones.

In later years, the Portuguese established a military fort among

50 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

the rocks which was notorious in Portugal. Its name was used to scare naughty children, their parents telling them they “would end up in Pungo Andongo” if they misbehaved.

In the 1920s, political prisoners were held at the fort and during Angola’s civil war the rocks were a key battleground between opposing forces.

Located around five hours’ drive from Luanda, the Pedras Negras change colour through the seasons as different moss and algae grow there. Steps up into the rocks lead to astonishing views of the surrounding countryside, and watching the sunset over the top of the stones is breathtaking. The rocks can be reached by 4x4 vehicles from the main road, midway between N’dalatando and Malanje, just after the village of Cacuso.

INSIDE ANGOLA

SEPTEMBER 2010 51