Universo 33

SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Universo www.universo-magazine.com

MARCH 2012

CEO CHANGEOVER

New man at the helm of Sonangol

MALANGE MAGIC

Boom province sets the pace

OIL BONANZA

Hidden treasure in Angola’s subsalt

ISSUE 33 – MARCH 2012

INSIDE:

oil and gas news

Inside this issue

Universo is the international magazine of Sonangol Board Members Francisco de Lemos José Maria (President), Mateus de Brito, Anabela Fonseca, Sebastião Gaspar Martins, Fernando Roberto, Baptista Sumbe, Raquel Vunge Sonangol Department for Communication & Image Director João Rosa Santos Corporate Communications Assistants Nadiejda Santos, Lúcio Santos, Sarissari Diniz, José Mota, Beatriz Silva, Paula Almeida, Sandra Teixeira, Marta Sousa, Hélder Sirgado, Kimesso Kissoka Publisher Sheila O’Callaghan Editor John Kolodziejski Art Director Tony Hill

Circulation Manager Matthew Alexander Project Consultants Nathalie MacCarthy Mauro Perillo

London 2012

Sub Editor Ron Gribble

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.

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

Davenport House 16 Pepper Street London E14 9RP United Kingdom Tel + 44 20 7510 9595 Fax +44 20 7510 9596 sonangol@impact-media.com www.universo-magazine.com Cover: Kamene M Traça

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SONANGOL UNIVERSO

sonangol’s appointment of a new board along with a report on its annual results and press conference open our March issue. Angola’s number one company announced higher profits in a promising scenario of new subsalt oil finds and the forthcoming start up of LNG production Our second feature examines the surprisingly long-standing relationship between Angola and the United States. It exists on so many levels, from Angola’s Boeing fleet to a Luanda youth’s latest iPhone, that the connection is often overlooked. Universo takes a closer look.

Another story looks forward to Angola’s participation in the London 2012 Olympic Games. We also take a look back over past competitions; see how today’s athletes are preparing; and preview which sport stars are the likeliest to bring credit to Angola.

Brazil’s flamboyant annual Rio carnival was the setting for a heartfelt homage to Angola. Universo picks out some of the best photographic memories from this wonderful Angola-themed parade.

Malange is proving to be one of Angola’s most dynamic regions. Blessed with fertile soil and good rainfall, it is now set for economic lift-off, thanks to new infrastructure and investment.

We speak to the local ‘movers and shakers’.

Contents

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onangol chief moves to ministry; sunny S disposition guaranteed; carbon date with the future; presidential visitors; Neto tree-planting memorial; byte-sized television; credit boost to business; banking on development

Kimesso Kissoka

Angola news in brief

Sonangol: New Board Named

06

Sonangol’s new board, headed by Francisco Maria, officially took office on February 17

Sonangol reports higher profits in 2011

Angola’s Silent Partner

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any aspects of Angola’s relationship with the M United States are ‘under the radar’ but Universo tracks them down for examination

jennybs

08

06

14 Agência O Globo

Sonangol Profits Hit New Heights

Angola’s London Olympics

24

You Semba, We Samba!

34

ngola is the origin of Brazil’s samba. Rio de A Janeiro returns the compliment with a fulsome tribute to Angola in its annual parade

34 Jose Manuel Lima da Silva

Angola’s participation in London’s Olympic Games this year gives the country the opportunity to showcase its world-class athletes. Which competitors have the brightest prospects? We find out

Malange – Angola’s Boom Province gribusiness, tourism and new infrastructure A are key ingredients for Malange Province’s booming economy

Sonangol news in brief

46

L NG project; Sonangol shipping; new health clinics; Porto Amboim opens for business; oil output to rise in 2014; subsalt seismic survey; lighter load for gas users

38 BP p.l.c.

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Treasure in the Cellar: Angola’s Subsalt

48

ngola’s deep oil deposits are set to mirror A Brazil’s success

48 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

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ANGOLA NEWS IN BRIEF

Sonangol chief moves to ministry

iStock

Kimesso Kissoka

Sunny disposition guaranteed

SOLAR PANELS TO convert sunlight into electricity are to be installed in rural communities around Angola. The 132 solar photovoltaic systems will benefit 36 schools, 29 health centres, nine police stations, ten community centres and 48 administrative offices, says the Ministry for Energy and Water.

Street lighting will also use the solar energy. The provinces to benefit from the new technology are Bié, Cunene, Huíla, Kuando Kubango, Lunda Norte, Malange, Moxico and Zaire.

Banking on development THE AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK (AfDB) has opened an office in Luanda to boost support for the country’s economy. The AfDB currently finances six projects in Angola to the tune of $92 million in sectors including fishing, budget support and public-private partnerships. There are plans to increase overall investment to $400 million by 2015.

Angola has been a member of the AfDB since 1980 and has received technical and capacity assistance in several areas such as health, education, energy, water, agriculture and rural development. Septime Martin will be the AfDB resident representative in Luanda.

UN’s Ban Ki-moon visits Angola

PRESIDENT JOSÉ EDUARDO DOS SANTOS received UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for talks at the end of a two-day official visit to Angola.

‘Angola is a very important state for the United Nations and the visit is a great opportunity to see not only how to strengthen the contribution of the United Nations in the development of Angola, but also the contribution of Angola to the United Nations,’ the UN envoy said.

Ban Ki-moon visited a polio vaccination post in Viana during his stay. Angola has a campaign to vaccinate six million children against the disease.

South African President Jacob Zuma also recently visited Angola as did other heads of state and senior leaders including Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President Manuel Pinto da Costa from São Tomé and Príncipe, and Prime Ministers Carlos Gomes Júnior from Guinea-Bissau and Pedro Passos Coelho from Portugal.

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SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Angop

SONANGOL’S LONG-SERVING president Manuel Vicente has been appointed Minister of State for Economic Co-ordination. In his new role Vicente will be in charge of all Angola’s economic matters and will lead bilateral commissions with China, Brazil, Cuba and France. He is replaced at Sonangol by Francisco de Lemos José Maria.

Ruth da Costa David Vunge joins the company’s board as an executive administrator.

ANGOLA NEWS IN BRIEF

THE WIDOW OF Agostinho Neto, Angola’s first president, has launched a tree-planting campaign as a memorial to her late husband.

Maria Eugénia Neto inaugurated the scheme to commemorate what would have been Neto’s 90th birthday at Catete, Bengo, where he was born. She was accompanied by her daughter Irene Neto.

Working in conjunction with the Angolan Club of Ecological Friends for Life (CAAE), the family plans to plant 20,000 indigenous trees and open an ecological school in the area.

Carbon date with the future ANGOLA IS LAUNCHING a carbon credit programme, Minister of Environment Fátima Jardim announced during the COP17 Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa. Some 24 million tonnes of carbon credit will be made available from 60 potential projects across the country.

The Angola LNG project – due to start exporting natural gas shortly – will produce around 12 million tonnes of carbon credit a year. With this initiative, the minister said, Angola would become Africa’s third-largest carbon creditor nation, after Nigeria and South Africa.

Credit boost to business A CREDIT LINE of $1.6 billion is to be made available to Angolan enterprises in a bid to help bolster the private sector. President dos Santos made the announcement at an MPLA conference focusing on improving the performance of small and mediumsized companies and diversifying the economy away from its dependence on oil.

FIGURED OUT

25,000km

JOBS CREATED THANKS TO RISING VISITORS TO ANGOLA

OF ROADS REBUILT IN LUANDA SINCE 2008

$24. 9 billion VALUE OF ANGOLAN EXPORTS TO CHINA DURING 2011

50%

ANGOLA HOPES TO be the first African country to have a fully-digitalised television service by the end of 2012.

Talks are underway with a Japanese company to install the technology for the switchover. The system will be based on technology already used in Japan and Brazil.

Angola in numbers

70,000

CUT IN MALARIA CASES OVER THE LAST FIVE YEARS

Byte-sized TV

TV: iStock Landscape: Felipe Miguel

Neto tree-planting memorial

8%

INCREASE IN AGRICULTURAL OUTPUT LAST YEAR

6.8 million PUPILS REGISTERED IN SECONDARY SCHOOL THIS YEAR

SONANGOL UNIVERSO

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SPORTINGSONANGOL SUCCESS NEWS BRIEFING

SONANGOL:

NEW BOARD NAMED SONANGOL’S NEW BOARD was formally installed on February 17 in a ceremony presided over by Minister for the Economy Abraão Gourgel.

Also present were Manuel Vicente, the outgoing Sonangol board president and newly named Minister of State for Economic Coordination, and Botelho de Vasconcelos, the oil minister.

The new board president is Francisco de Lemos José Maria and the executive members are Anabela de Brito Fonseca, Baptista Sumbe, Fernando Roberto, Sebastião Gaspar Martins, Mateus Morais de Brito and Raquel David Vunge.

Vunge was the only new executive board member to take office.

Minister Gourgel also formally installed non-executive board members Albina Assis Africano, André Lelo, José Gime and José Paiva.

Speaking during the ceremony Manuel Vicente congratulated the board on its renewal and urged its members to make every effort to go forward and meet the new challenge. He also said that with the realisation of the installation ceremony, the board had the legitimacy to pursue the programmes of transforming and developing the company.

The Minister of State for Economic Coordination also reiterated that change should be the only constant factor in any organisation as long as it adds value. He also said that he had full confidence in the new board team.

The ceremony was also attended by the representatives of oil companies operating in Angola, the board presidents of Sonangol E.P. subsidiaries as well as guests.

■

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SONANGOL UNIVERSO

SONANGOL NEWSSPORTING BRIEFING SUCCESS

Anabela de Brito Fonseca

Baptista Sumbe

Fernando Roberto

Mateus Morais de Brito

Sebastião Gaspar Martins

Raquel David Vunge

Albini Assis

André Lelo

José Gime

SONANGOL UNIVERSO

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SONANGOL NEWS BRIEFING

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SONANGOL UNIVERSO

SONANGOL NEWS BRIEFING

SONANGOL PROFITS

HIT NEW HEIGHTS

iStock

Francisco de Lemos José Maria addressed his first press conference as Sonangol’s new board president in February, announcing improved profits for 2011.

Francisco Maria proclaimed stability in production and continuity in the company’s financial performance as the great victories and achievements made during the year

SONANGOL UNIVERSO

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SONANGOL NEWS BRIEFING

In terms of the stability of the company, this has always been our goal – and this is the goal towards which we will continue so that Sonangol continues to deliver results like the ones we have been delivering from 2011

■ SONANGOL’S NEW PRESIDENT Francisco de

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SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Kamene M Traça

Kamene M Traça

– Francisco Maria

Sebastião Gaspar Martins

Kamene M Traça

Lemos José Maria delivered his first annual report to the board on February 24, less than a month after he took office, and the news was good.

He attributed Sonangol’s robust gains in revenue last year to higher crude oil prices, which eclipsed a much smaller decline in production.

Announcing net profits of $3.32 billion for 2011 – 32 per cent higher than the $2.52 billion registered in 2010 – he said the company’s solid profits were the result of crude oil sales jumping 14 per cent to $33.78 billion. While refined products sales were worth $2.89 billion.

The new board president reported that Angola’s crude output dropped 5.6 per cent to 1.66 million barrels per day (bpd) last year from 1.76 million bpd in 2010. The reduction was attributed to technical problems and maintenance work. The government has said it expects oil output to bounce back in 2012 to 1.8 million bpd.

Francisco Maria told a packed Sonangol press conference of international media that the reduction in oil output primarily affected the non-Angolan investors in the industry, whose production fell 18.2 per cent. Sonangol’s own output, he said, suffered a fall of 6.9 per cent, while Sonangol P&P’s output shrank by just 4.9 per cent.

“In direct contrast, however,” he pointed out, “revenue increased by 14 per cent, which is explained by higher oil prices in the international market.”

Francisco Maria also had good news regarding the performance of Angola’s only refinery at Luanda. “During 2011 the Luanda refinery processed the equivalent of 41,600 barrels of oil per day, an increase of 26 per cent compared to 2010,” he said.

Imports of refined products, however, jumped by 15 per cent to a total of 3.26 million tonnes.

The largest component of these imports was diesel, with nearly 2 million tonnes.

Francisco Maria said Sonangol distributed 4.16 million tonnes of products in Angola and exported 800,000 tonnes of refined products, mostly fuel oil, last year. Rising international oil prices also affected the overall costs of Angola’s imports of refined products. These came to $3.3 billion, a leap of 52 per cent compared to 2010.

As concession-owner, Sonangol EP earned $28.5 billion while its investments gained another $5.29 billion. Sonangol P&P added a further $1.74 billion to the company’s bank balance, he said.

SONANGOL NEWS BRIEFING

FINANCE

iStock

Sonangol’s solid profits were the result of crude oil sales which jumped 14% to $33.78 billion

Baptista Muhongo Sumbe

Sonangol Investments in 2011

Crude oil business Natural gas projects

$ millions 1,900 234

Transport of refined oil products 572 Refining

254

Logistics

123

Distribution 119 Communications

23

Technical and professional training 30 Financial investment

180

Property 2,240 Industrial development

186

Testing 70 Health 8

Kamene M Traça

Education 32

Out of sales of over $33 billion, Sonangol obtained an EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) of $6 billion, said Francisco Maria. This represented a margin of almost 9 per cent of EBITDA. He said pretax profits were $4.94 billion and preliminary net profits were calculated at $3.32 billion, up on the profit for 2010 by $2.52 billion.

The board president also gave details of Sonangol’s $6 billion in investments during 2011, which rose 20 per cent on the previous year.

Francisco Maria announced that Sonangol had gone into a situation of debt last year for the first time in its history. This totalled $10.6 billion with $3.1 billion short term and the other $7.5 billion long term. Part of this debt, he explained, was accounted for in the 20 per cent rise in investment last year.

Apart from Angola, Sonangol also invested in Brazil, Cuba, Iraq and Venezuela.

The Sonangol group is made up of Sonangol Pesquisa e Produção, Sonangol Gás Natural (Sonagás), Sonangol Refinaria de Luanda, Sonangol Shipping, Sonangol Logística, Sonangol Distribuidora, SonAir, ESSA, MSTelcom, Clínica Girassol, Sonangol Holdings, Sonangol Imobiliária e Propriedade (Sonip), Sonangol Investimentos Industriais (Siind), Sonangol Comercialização Internacional (Sonaci), Sonangol Shipping, Sonangol USA, Sonangol Limited and Sonangol Ásia.

Sonangol employed 8,256 people at the end of 2011, and Francisco Maria ended his report by congratulating them for their performance and dedication during the year to achieving these results.

Asked by the press what the highlights had been for Sonangol in 2011, he replied: “Stability in terms of production and continuity in the company’s financial performance are the great victories and the great achievements which the company has realised.”

Francisco Maria went on to outline the challenges ahead: “Looking to the future, the entering into production of Angola LNG constitutes for the moment our key priority. In May, this dream will become a reality.

“We hope that during this year it will be possible to take a final decision around the construction of the Lobito refinery and, gradually, eliminate the importation of almost 3 million tonnes of refined products, which has been the target for some years now,” he said.

SONANGOL UNIVERSO

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SONANGOL NEWS BRIEFING

Anabela Fonseca

Fernando Roberto

Kamene M Traça

Kamene M Traça

Raquel Vunge a new face on the board

Board president Francisco Maria has thus set out the company’s stall. The forthcoming landmarks of Sonangol’s future success will be based on the completion, very shortly, of the Angola LNG project which promises to herald a new era of Angolan prosperity thanks to a new export product.

Looking further ahead, moves to build the proposed Lobito Refinery will go a long way towards giving the country fuel supply independence and cutting Angolan imports.

Sonangol and Angola’s future continues to look bright.

“In terms of the stability of the company, this has always been our goal - and this is the goal towards which we will continue so that Sonangol continues to deliver results like the ones we have been delivering from 2011.”

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SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Kamene M Traça

Kamene M Traça

Mateus de Brito

Looking to the future... entering into production of Angola LNG constitutes for the moment our key priority.

In May this dream will become a reality – Francisco Maria

LNG PROJECT UPDATE

Sonangol board member Mateus Morais de Brito gave an update on the country’s Liquefied Natural Gas project (Angola LNG). He said that start-up in the first quarter would be slightly delayed owing to the need for “some additional tests”. Production will now begin in early May and “first exports are likely for May 20 or 25, although that date is still to be confirmed”.

He added that there had been some significant achievements in Sonangol’s international operations on both the technical and organisational fronts.

LATIN AMERICA

Mateus de Brito said Sonangol had drilled four prospects in Brazil, three in the Campos Basin and one in the Santos Basin. Of the three wells, one was dry; in the second, an oil reservoir was

found but the tests were not conclusive enough for a commercial declaration; and in the third, in the Campos Basin, two intervals of oil were found and tests to establish commercial feasibility were underway.

At the fourth well, in the Santos Basin, there were no results yet but more information would be available in two or three months, he said.

Sonangol had also completed studies 3km down in Cuba and was now in the process of evaluating the prospects based on the geological and geophysical formations.

Meanwhile, in Venezuela, Sonangol was completing the formation of a joint venture with Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) and CubaPetróleo (CUPET) with the possibility of starting production this year of between 20,000 and 50,000 bpd for five years, he reported.

SONANGOL NEWS BRIEFING

UNITED STATES

Mateus de Brito said Sonangol has restarted operations in the Gulf of Mexico after two years of paralysis following the incident at the Macondo well belonging to BP. “At this precise moment we are in the process of producing the first report and we will have some results within more or less 40 or 45 days, which we will then communicate,” he said.

Kamene M Traça

MIDDLE EAST

As far as the Middle East is concerned, Sonangol’s operations were suspended at its Najma concession in Iraq after an attack last December by unknown groups who launched three rockets and destroyed eight trucks carrying seismic equipment.

“For this reason, we have suspended our operations and we made a declaration of force majeure as per our service contract. We are now in discussions with the government of Iraq and collaborating to re-create the conditions so that we can shortly return to our concessions,” explained Mateus de Brito.

“We should have had some results this month (February) about our exploration in Iraq, but due to this situation it has not been possible to get those results. However, our target is to produce 50,000 barrels over three years, and over the next seven years that will grow to 250,000 barrels.

“In this area we are doing everything possible to re-create the conditions and start working again. We are having many meetings with the Iraqi government and the oil companies working there and doing all we can to overcome this situation.’

Mateus de Brito also revealed that Sonangol was pulling out of Iran. “We are out of Iran due to the international sanctions imposed by the United Nations. At this moment it is not sustainable to continue with technical or operational activities in Iran. We are letting the government of Iran and the companies there know that we are now no longer in Iran,” he declared.

LOBITO REFINERY PROJECT

Board member Anabela Fonseca gave more details on Angola’s proposed second refinery at Lobito. “The process of drawing up the basic engineering design will be completed in March.

Parallel to this we are looking at finding partnerships so that Sonangol will have 50 per cent and the other 50 per cent will be held by partners. To this end we have begun discussions with Total, BP and Eni. These discussions are not yet over,” she said.

Fonseca said discussions with Eni are the most advanced. “There has been an exchange of information, and we have made available to Eni all the results of studies that we have done and they are looking at them. Eni has proposed some alterations to the layout that Sonangol originally proposed, including a new technology patented by Eni which eliminates coking from the refining process.

“Coke has little market value. With the introduction of this technology, we need to revisit the Feed [front-end engineering design], the refinery’s basic engineering design.

“We have done market studies to fix the capacity at 200,000bpd. With these new proposals we now need to do a new feasibility study, which we expect will be completed by April 15. Once this study has been done, we will decide on who will be entering into the partnership,” she said.

Fonseca said Sonangol had not yet ruled out a partnership with Total or BP, with whom it had held talks. “Total has in its possession all the studies that we have done and is in the process of evaluating them. And we have had two very productive meetings with BP with whom we have also shared information, and discussions continue,” she explained.

“We have not yet decided on the percentage breakdown of the partnerships. What is decided, though, is that Sonangol will have 50 per cent and the other 50 per cent will be held by partners. Eni has shown an interest from the start that they would like to take 20 per cent and have other partners, but all this depends on the outcome of the profitability study that we are doing,” she said.

Fonseca also disclosed that China accounts for about 36 per cent of Angola’s oil exports. The United States comes in at second place with 17 per cent and, overall, Asia buys 59 per cent of Angolan oil.

SOYO & CABINDA

Answering questions from the press, board member Sebastião Gaspar Martins gave details of Sonangol’s activities in Soyo and Cabinda.

“As concessionaire in Soyo and Cabinda, we have in development some management activities relating to exploration. Our production in Cabinda is mostly from offshore. In Soyo, at this moment, our production rate is 10,000 barrels of oil per day, mostly operated by the Angolan company Somoil, which also has Sonangol as a partner,” he said.

“In Cabinda we are able to operate in the two areas, onshore and offshore. Cabinda is mainly operated by Chevron, but Sonangol is also a partner in Block 0 and Block 14. We also have some activities on the border with the Republic of Congo, thanks to some discoveries we have made there. At the moment, the discussions are very advanced in terms of working on this area which will be developed jointly between Angola and Congo Brazzaville.

“We have for the first time the possibility of onshore production in Cabinda, which is being led by the Argentinian company Pluspetrol, in which Sonangol has a stake. On the other hand, we have some very advanced activities being realised by Sonangol P&P in the role as operator relating to the exploration of the Bloco Cabinda Norte.

“Thanks to the potential that exists in the region along the border with Congo Brazzaville, we will have some very positive news very soon in terms of onshore production in Cabinda.”

Board member Baptista Sumbe updated the press conference on some of Sonangol’s investment activities in the banking industry and the Portuguese oil company Galp.

“In relation to Millennium BCP, it is in the public domain that the bank’s statutes are being revised and all the financing models of the bank. On the 28th and 29th of this February there will be the first board meeting with the newly-appointed managers. It will be after this that Sonangol will decide whether to increase its stake in the bank, which is currently 20 per cent,” he said.

As for Sonangol’s interest in Portuguese bank Banco Totta, Caixa Totta, Sumbe said the process had not advanced much, largely due to current constraints on international financial markets.

“The intention is there, though it is going forward quite slowly. It depends on the financial markets picking up, but we will complete the process that we started.

“Regarding Galp, there are discussions but it would be premature of us to advance information about those. Eni has publicised its intention to be released from its stake in Galp and there have been moves on behalf of the Portuguese government to keep this stake for Portuguese companies.

“Sonangol also aims to take over this stake, but we cannot give away much more information because we are in negotiations with our partners at Galp. In good time we will let you know about the results of Eni’s departure.” ■

SONANGOL UNIVERSO

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SPORTING SUCCESS

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11 SONANGOL UNIVERSO SONANGOL UNIVERSO

ANGOLA-US SPORTING RELATIONS SUCCESS

ANGOLA’S SILENT PARTNER

jennybs

Large-scale infrastructure projects built by other countries have tended to shift the limelight away from the high-tech role played by the United States in Angola’s startling economic renaissance.

Universo profiles Angola’s multiple links with the world’s only superpower

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SONANGOL UNIVERSO 12 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

ANGOLA-US RELATIONS

T

he advance in relations between Angola and the United States has been “fairly incredible” in the barely two decades since diplomatic recognition, says US Ambassador Christopher J. McMullen, who took up his post in March last year.

According to McMullen, the icing on the cake was the signing of the 2010 Strategic Partnership Dialogue, a wide-ranging agreement aimed at developing common interests in oil, gas and renewable energy sources as well as regional security and air and maritime safety.

This new phase in US-Angolan relations also embraces efforts in enhancing food security through public-private farming partnerships, strengthening institutional capacity and delivering public health programmes.

McMullen is, however, anxious to point out that American relations with the Angolan people go back much further than the period of the Independence struggle. Indeed, they go back many centuries.

“The first Africans to reach the territory which comprises the United States today were slaves coming from Angola,” says Maria da Cruz Gabriel, executive director of the US-Angola

Chamber of Commerce (USACC). “They became part of the first permanent English settlement in Virginia. This common historical past should be seen as an asset to bring US and Angola co-operation even closer in today’s world.”

Ambassador McMullen outlined three major elements contributing to the solidity of the relationship. First of all, the American missionaries who went to Angola in the early 1800s and cemented “people-to-people” connections.

An important consequence of these missions was to bring literacy and educational opportunities to a broad spectrum of Angolan society. The late President Agostinho Neto’s father was a Protestant pastor, and a New Yorkbased missionary board granted Neto himself a scholarship in 1947 to study medicine.

The US missionary connection with Angola is still strong, according to McMullen, but more-secular organisations have widely taken on the missionaries support role in social development. Today’s multitude of US-supported non-governmental organisations (NGOs) provide continuity in health and educational projects and keep up fruitfully direct personal relations with Angolan people all over the country.

A second base element in US-Angolan relations, and of extreme economic importance, is of course the oil industry. American company involvement in Angolan oil exploration dates back to the second decade of the 20th century.

Chevron is today’s emblematic and longeststanding American presence in Angola’s hydrocarbons sector, having drilled the first onshore and offshore wells in 1958 and 1966, respectively. It was also the first, in 1997, to operate a deepwater well. Even when the United States had no official ties with the Angolan government after Independence, Chevron continued to operate normally in the country.

The third component to US-Angolan relations is “government-to-government”. According to McMullen, many US government agencies long had informal connections with Angolan government ministers even when there was no official recognition.

Angola has been running a trade surplus with the US in recent decades, dominated by Angolan crude oil sales. This does not daunt McMullen.

He believes it is in the nature of the oil trade that there will be a lack of balance, and points to a similar relationship with Venezuela.

Angola’s size relative to the United States

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SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Mark Clydesdale

Angola has been running a trade surplus with the US in recent decades, dominated by Angolan crude oil sales

iStock

ANGOLA-US RELATIONS

When one thinks of US companies well established in Angola, Chevron is the first to come to mind. Chevron is the largest foreign oil-industry employer of Angolans with around 3,000, or 90 per cent, of its workforce.

“Angolanisation is moving ahead very well,” says Ali Moshiri, Chevron’s president for Africa and Latin America.

“Chevron has been very consistent; even during the civil war Chevron was present and developing its Angolan employees.”

The industry’s thirst for new local talent is relentless.

“There’s a tremendous demand for and a shortage of oil professionals. We could employ every graduate and still be short of them. Demand will rise and rise,” Moshiri predicts.

He points out that there is also strong demand for Angolans to work outside the country in Chevron’s operations.

Moshiri describes Chevron as “among the top two oil producers in Angola”.

Chevron, Sonangol and its partners are currently building the Angola LNG plant, probably the largest infrastructure project in Africa in dollar and tonnage terms.

“This is a tremendous success and has been built safely and on schedule with production starting no later than mid-2012,” he says. “Just five years ago it was still on the drawing board.”

According to Moshiri, the project creates value by gathering associated gas from current and future oil wells, and by cutting carbon emissions by reducing flaring while also bringing more gas to market internationally and for use in Angola.

Chevron’s next impressive engineering feat for Angola is the Congo River Canyon pipeline crossing, which will sink a gas pipeline deep under one of the world’s largest rivers. This is currently at the contracting stage.

Chevron’s corporate social relationship with Angola is long-standing, varied and strong. The Angola Partnership Initiative (API) was forged after a meeting between the chairman of Chevron and the President of Angola in 2002.

API developed as a major contributor, helping the country stabilise and rebuild post-civil war. Including matching funds and skill contributions from USAID, API support today stands at over $50 million. Its objectives include sustainable social engagement between private industry and the public sector with a focus on delivering better outcomes in terms of education, health, agricultural development and microeconomic programmes. API has also served as a touch-stone for more-targeted programmes to emerge and flourish.

Among them is the Chevron and Angolan government partnership with Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) to provide screening and effective treatment of sickle cell disease.

Another programme, Global Health Corps, has now also been established with the same partners thus bringing the links between Houston and Luanda – and the United States and Angola – more closely together for the benefit of the Angolan people and the doctors who are helping them.

SONANGOL UNIVERSO

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ANGOLA-US RELATIONS

However, the hefty trade deficit is one reason why the US is keen to raise its exports to Angola.

America understandably wants to diversify its trade with the country. A good example of US efforts to build local manufacturing capacity in Angola is the establishment of a factory for offshore equipment set up at the Sonils logistics base by Cameron last year.

Oil will always be the anchor of US business in Angola, McMullen concedes, but the growth of the sector allows the opportunity for companies such as General Electric and Bechtel, the engineering, construction and production project consultants, to establish themselves locally.

General Electric has won important contracts to supply power generation units for offshore rigs, positioning it well for contracts in domestic and industrial projects now planned on land.

Last August, a high level American delegation of energy companies visited Angola’s Ministry of Water and Energy to discuss co-operation in wind and solar energy, power dams and modernising the national electricity grid.

Whereas other countries’ involvement in Angola’s reconstruction such as that of China, Brazil and Portugal, is highly visible in road, rail, construction, and airports, American efforts are often “under the radar”, McMullen believes.

The ambassador likes to think of the US as Angola’s “valued-added, silent partner”. He sees efforts at the “top-end” of economic value as the area where the US is particularly strong and

points to the presence in Angola of American computing giants such as IBM and Hewlett Packard (HP), along with automatic controls maker Honeywell and petrochemical mammoths Dow and DuPont.

IBM opened offices in Luanda last September.

HP did the same in the previous year, while Honeywell set up shop in Luanda back in 2006 to cater for the automation needs of the buoyant oil and gas industry.

Education & Training Another keystone of America’s relationship with Angola is education, one of the most enduring aspects of its “people-to-people” relationship. There are currently a record 699 Angolan students enrolled in full-time courses in the US according to McMullen.

Learning the English language is another magnet for US expertise and services. Demand for language-learning could easily absorb America’s entire Angolan spending budget, the ambassador believes. People want to learn because English is the language of the Southern Africa Development Community, SADC, the regional trading bloc, as well as of the internet and international business.

There is also a great deal of interest in gaining proficiency in English as this helps when applying for a place at Agostinho Neto University and in securing jobs with multinational companies.

The US government also partners NGOs and

US-Angola Trade

Year

US Exports

US Imports

2011

1,501

13,598

-12,097

2010

1,294

11,940

-10,646

2009

1,423

9,339

-7,916

2008

2,019

18,911

-16,892

2007

1,242

12,508

-11,266

2006

1,389

11,719

-10,330

2005

929

8,484

-7,555

2004

594

4,521

-3,927

2003

491

4,267

-3,776

2002

374

3,123

-2,749

Source: US Census Bureau (data in US$ rounded to nearest million)

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US-Angola Chamber of Commerce Key to efforts in balancing US-Angola trade and promoting American manufacturing and business in the country is the US-Angola Chamber of Commerce (USACC). Set up in 1991, it lobbied on behalf of US companies operating in Angola for the normalisation of diplomatic relations between both countries before recognition.

The establishment of diplomatic relations in May 1993 was also a great victory for the USACC and its members. The chamber was instrumental in building the bridge between both countries and enhancing the level of trust that led to the move. The USACC has more recently lobbied the US and Angola to reach a consular agreement to issue two-year multiple-entry visas for the promotion of trade and development between both countries.

Today, the USACC continues to promote trade, investment and Angolan economic diversification, and assists members in identifying and responding to business opportunities, as well as supporting the development of the Angolan private sector. It represents the views of the private sector to officials in both governments, keeping members informed about changes in laws, regulations, policy and economic conditions in Angola and the United States.

The chamber has over 90 members, 60 per cent of them US companies and 40 per cent Angolan companies. the USACC has offices in Washington, DC and Luanda but is working towards expanding its reach outside of these areas in both countries. This year, USACC will focus on rebranding initiatives for Angola in the United States, as well as encouraging diversifying investments away from the oil and gas sector.

At the end of March, the USACC is planning to work with the Ministry of Transport in showcasing opportunities in the sector, particularly in railways and the new Luanda airport. It will also host representatives of the business community in the Benguela region to assist in establishing US partnerships and technical assistance there. The USACC plans to lead a trade mission to Houston and New Orleans focused on the oil and gas sector in May. The chamber has been engaging the Angolan diaspora in the US to provide them with the tools to invest in Angola. The US government and the World Bank also have programmes that provide resources to members of the diaspora to invest in their home country.

Boeing, supplier of much of Angola’s larger aircraft, is a highly visible US presence in the country’s skies. The Seattle-based company has a very close relationship with national carrier TAAG Angola Airlines, the purchaser of two extended-range 777-300ERs last year. Angola was the first African country to buy, own and operate them. Boeing 737s have been the workhorses of Angola’s regional airline system since 1976. iStock

Boeing TAAG

iStock

ANGOLA-US RELATIONS

Consumer electronics, especially personal computers and mobile phones, are another often overlooked yet ever-present aspect of US highend technology in Angola. PCs, iPods, iPhones and iPads abound and are the fruit of American innovation and entrepreneurial élan. Angolans have taken them to their heart, as have countless millions around the globe.

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UN bodies involved in education and vocational training through the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The same NGOs may also be supported by American corporate social responsibility efforts.

United States energy companies are one of the largest recruiters for workers in Angola from Angolan communities in the United States. They also provide training for their personnel and send many to the United States to study. In addition, the Ministry of Petroleum and Sonangol have sent, and continue to send, students to the United States for training at universities around the country, in particular to Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.

The Catholic University of Angola and Boston University have a partnership in a cultural exchange programme. ShareCircle, a non-profit body led by a member of the Angolan diaspora in America, will be building a university in Angola with the support of US universities that will provide staff to assist with teaching.

Members of the diaspora are well placed to assist and be part of educational programmes supported by Angolan entities to bring students

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to the United States for technical and specialised training. Moreover, the growing number of American citizens in Angola and Angolans settling in the US is testimony to how the strategic interests and views of both countries are becoming intertwined.

Helping hand The presence of Bill Gates, billionaire founder of Microsoft, goes far beyond the sale of company products in Angola. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has channelled millions of dollars into Angolan development projects and philanthropic initiatives, notably in combating malaria and a resurgence of polio, as well as, public health campaigns against HIV/Aids.

American entrepreneurs characteristically work extremely hard to achieve economic success but are also among the foremost and most generous supporters of charitable causes.

Reputedly the third-richest man in the world last year, and perhaps its most successful investor, Warren Buffett has pledged to give around $30 billion to the Gates Foundation as part of his

plan to donate 99 per cent of his wealth to charity.

Healthcare is another discreet area of US government co-operation and support where it seeks to promote sustainable and equal access to services for all. According to McMullen, around 75 per cent of the US health aid budget of $100 million a year to Angola is used in disease prevention.

US support for Angolan economic development, education, health and welfare comes in various forms. A differential compared to other countries lies in the way it is delivered, taking advantage of synergies and the opportunity to raise funds.

US government economic support through USAID is often channelled through NGOs on the ground and may also work in tandem with American companies’ corporate social responsibility efforts such as those of the oil industry.

One example would be USAID’s partnership in farming development with Chevron, called ProAgro. The jointly-funded programme provides technical assistance to more than 5,500 farmers, around a third of them women. According to the

ANGOLA-US RELATIONS

Mark Clydesdale

US cities with Angolan links

Houston, one of America’s main oil industry centres, is also the sister city to Luanda.

Angolan Ministry of Agriculture, between 2007 and 2009 the project helped farmers increase yields from an average of 17 tonnes to a target of 32 tonnes per hectare.

USAID has been in Angola for 15 years, initially as a provider of food aid but now more in the way of technical assistance in health, mine clearance, credits for small and medium-sized businesses, education and building institutional capacity – a “silent partner in reconstruction,” as McMullen terms this support.

Notable results in health-field campaigns have been a reduction in malaria cases by 50 per cent in the last five years and the near-eradication of polio, with just one case reported in 2011 compared to 26 in 2010.

Community & Culture There are two major Angolan communities in the United States at Houston and Washington, DC. Houston, one of America’s main oil industry centres, is also the sister city to Luanda.

There are solid cultural and political ties between Angola and the United States. Modern

Esso: Angola’s Kizomba partner Another major American oil multinational present in Angola for the past 17 years is Esso, part of the ExxonMobil Corporation. Esso aims to contribute to strengthening US-Angolan relations by its corporate activities.

Apart from its company enterprises, Esso is committed to promoting local participation through training and developing Angolan students and giving priority to Angolan suppliers of goods and services, as well as to community investments in line with the priorities of government employees.

“Looking towards the future, we will continue to see good opportunities for growth, not only for Esso, but also for other American companies who seek to invest outside the oil sector in businesses that contribute to the development and diversification of the Angolan economy,” said a company spokeswoman.

Esso’s Kizomba Satellite offshore wells development is the company’s main project in Angola. It consists of an underwater structure in Block 15 developed from the Mavacola and Clochas fields, which use the installations for production, storage and offloading of Kizomba A and B. The execution of the project has strong performance in work safety. Esso says that manufacturing work for most of the components was undertaken in country as part of its strategy of maximising Angola’s capacity. The project is forecast to recover about 250 million barrels of oil with production starting in 2012.

American jazz, soul and rock music have deep roots in Africa through the slave trade in which Angola figured prominently. Modern US rappers tour Angolan stadiums to a warm welcome while Angolan youth produces its own rappers. Recent American musical visitors to Angola include the US Navy jazz band that played a concert in Luanda’s Sambizanga district and the Dennis Luxion/Michael Raynor Jazz Quartet, participants in a jam session with local musicians.

Getting Closer Ambassador McMullen says there appears to have been progress in bringing the US and Angola closer together with recent reports from American businesspeople of a discernible speeding up in granting visas to US citizens.

Angola’s observance of contracts, he notes, is an impressive aspect of the local business scene.

He also praises ANIP, Angola’s investment body, for enhancing the business climate and making transactions more predictable as businesspeople need clear rules before investing in the country.

McMullen also applauds Angola’s efforts at consolidating democracy with the holding of elections in 2012. “This shows great maturity,” he says. “It’s going to be a big year and we want to be with them. We want to help in any way we can in the election and post-election period and broaden participation in democracy.”

The US government has pledged $2 million in technical assistance to electoral committees and democratic roundtables aimed at reinforcing democratic practices.

Looking ahead, McMullen says the United States is keen to advance its strategic partnership with Angola and get the relationship right. “We want to build trust and confidence, and it’s okay to agree to disagree sometimes. We disagree with our allies from time to time, even our closest neighbour Canada, but we’re still friends and strategic partners.”

The ambassador sees the US-Angola relationship in the past 20 years as overall a “positive story”. He accepts there will be “bumps along the way” but that culturally both countries are very pragmatic and in many ways alike. ■

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(Top) The first visit to Angola of African-American astronaut Bernard Harris Jr. iStock

(Above) Ambassador McMullen visits the Dom Bosco Centre at Sambizanga Houston, the Texas oil industry centre with a strong Angolan presence

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Houston’s downtown: where major oil companies have their offices

Brazuk Ltd.

iStock

US Capital Washington is popular with Angolan students

ANGOLA-US RELATIONS

Raimundo Santos Angolan-American Raimundo Santos is well known to Angolan TV viewers as “Professor Raimundo” due to the impact that he made as the vocal coach of the 2005 and 2006 Angolan Star Search singing contest Estrelas ao Palco.

He has a degree in music (jazz and classical voice) from Temple University and has been sharing his 30-plus years of experience in the performing arts with his peers in Angola. He has been working with top and upcoming local artists as a producer, voice coach and music director for various types of local music such as kizomba and kilapanga as well as rap, jazz, R&B and classical.

Santos moved to Angola in 2004 with a job offer to direct a music school. “I had never lived in Angola before but I visited several times on vacation and to meet family.

The reasons I accepted the position were the interest in connecting with my roots, a love interest (a girlfriend) and the job itself. There was also the great benefit of seeing my brother, who has been here since 1993.

“I am first-generation Angolan-American. My parents migrated to the US and escaped colonialism in the late fifties and early sixties. They both studied and received their masters’ degrees and citizenship.

“I grew up in Philadelphia and know that there is a good population of Angolans scattered in clusters or as individual families in most areas of Philly. When I was a child, I remember travelling sometimes to other states to meet other families, and most of the time they would talk about old times or people they knew.

“What struck me most about those times in Philly or outside was that it was like meeting extended family. The community was not cohesive physically but it was connected by heritage.”

Santos has featured on two jazz CDs Love’s Calling and Coming Home. He has also produced two CDs, Mama África and Renova, for the group The Paulinas. The second, released in 2009, features the artist Miguel Buíla and won two ML3 awards in Angola.

It also won best traditional song for the composition São Pedro and best gospel album for 2009.

Raimundo Santos

Bridging the Atlantic Senior Counsel at BP is American polymath Norman Nadorff. Corporate lawyer Nadorff forms a one-man physical and mental bridge between the United States and Angola. Not only has he been instrumental in developing academic training and expertise for Angolan lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic, but he has also established himself as a rock player in his band Turmoil.

Nadorff has gone far beyond what would satisfy most expatriates keen to fit into Luandan life.

Fluent in Portuguese, in which he has a master’s degree, he even performs on stage singing in Kimbundu, the national language mostly spoken in Luanda and the region stretching towards Malange.

Furthermore, the rock-singer lawyer has explored and knows some of the hidden culinary secrets of Luanda and can lead visitors to the best-value and tastiest-food restaurants in the capital. Nadorff has a liking for funge, the cassava-based porridge popular with Angolans. Funge eating and appreciation is a key rite of passage for foreigners open to sharing the everyday life of the host population.

Norman Nadorff

“The moral of the story is that an expat can make as much or as little of his life in Angola as he wants, but for those who really want to penetrate its dusty surface, opportunities abound. Angola is far more knowable than many countries that expatriates are assigned to,” he says.

The child Nadorff’s Angolan partner is expecting will cement his Angola connection even more firmly.’

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ANGOLA’S

LONDON

OLYMPICS

A sporting David faces the world’s Goliaths

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London 2012

OLYMPICS

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Angola’s athletes will mark their country’s eighth appearance at the Olympics in London 2012 and hope to make a greater impact this time round.

Universo looks at the preparations underway and the venue awaiting them

W

hile angola has yet to win its first medal at the Olympic Games, there is eagerness among its athletes to do their best and make the nation proud.

“Until now we’ve never managed to reach a final and gain an Olympic medal, but the dedication of each athlete to their sport and to the nation doesn’t count for nothing,” says Nádia Cruz, whose enthusiasm for the Games dates back to her youthful debut in the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

Angola’s Olympic athletes form a small band when compared with the much bigger contingents other countries send. The African nation’s largest team sent to date has numbered 33 athletes, compared to around 800 from some of the other sporting nations.

But what Angola lacks in numbers it makes up for in dogged persistence and, in cases such as the female basketball team, the sheer joy of the game and in their passion for representing their country.

Angola’s team for London 2012 will be at least 33-strong and perhaps include as many as 39. The athletes already qualified are the female basketball and handball teams, swimmers, judo contestants and canoeists. More may yet qualify in male basketball, athletics, beach volleyball, taekwondo and rowing.

António Monteiro, affectionately known as ‘Bambino’, will head the Angolan delegation to the London Olympics, repeating his role at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. He has a long pedigree as an athlete, including swimming for Angola at

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the country’s first Olympics in Moscow 1980.

“I was a swimmer for 16 years, 15 of them in the Angolan national team and 12 as the team captain,” he said. “I ended my sporting career

GDP of many African countries, but there has been progress, and he believes Angola is moving up in the sporting world and cutting the distance that separates it from the Goliaths.

‘The greatest prize for the athletes, first of all, is to manage to qualify for the Olympic Games’ – Monteiro

in 1988 and I’m still the holder of six of the 18 records I held.”

From athletics he moved into administration and has been president of Angola’s Swimming Federation for the past 12 years. Bambino is remarkably downbeat on Angola’s chances of podium places at the London games. He prefers realism to over-optimism.

“We have no ambitions as far as winning medals is concerned. We know our sporting reality as we do the reality of world sport. It clearly isn’t possible at this stage of our sports’ development,” he told the Angolan sporting press.

He is, however, a long way from dismissing Angola’s Olympic efforts. “The greatest prize for the athletes, first of all, is to manage to qualify for the Olympic Games. We’re a small country with weak investment in sport, in terms of infrastructure, finance and human resources. I would say we are a David at the feet of Goliath.”

Bambino said many of the leading contingents in the Olympics spend amounts greater than the

“Since our first participation, the distance is still large but not so large as before,” is his measured assessment. Despite the unlevel economic playing field, Bambino pledged that Angola would seek to do its best in London.

Heart in Seoul Nádia Cruz, another former Olympic swimmer and a member of Angola’s Olympic Committee, is also under no illusions about the limits to Angola’s ambitions at London 2012.

She first appeared as Angola’s youngest athlete aged just 13 at the Seoul Olympics 24 years ago. Her youthful Seoul experience bonded her tightly to the Olympic cause, an attitude found throughout Angola’s team destined for London.

“It was a special time for me with all the media asking my opinion. I was just a child without any idea of what the Olympic Games really were, but the gamble my Swimming Federation and Olympic Committee took on me created within me a love, vision, dedication and

iStock

OLYMPICS

discipline to continue training for so many years and take part in three more Olympics, although I never achieved the highest levels in the games,” she explained.

Cruz’s last Olympics was Sydney 2000 and illustrates well the gap Bambino alludes to between the Davids and Goliaths. “Australia gave me the understanding of how a candidate Olympic athlete trained and how each athlete had an exclusive staff to prepare them. There was a team of seven specialist professionals per swimmer while I spent most of my career alone,” said Cruz.

“I had fought and done everything I could to be at the highest level of international competition, including leaving everything behind and accepting a scholarship to train in Australia to prepare. But as science shows, results and victory at times don’t always depend on just one person. Unfortunately, even giving everything I had, I never had the preparation and a trainer to accompany me personally for a competition, and this always made all the difference as the benchmarks were different.”

Looking ahead, Cruz highlighted swimmer Pedro Pinotes as likely to give a good account of himself in London. The goal for Angola at the Olympics should be “to always improve our levels of qualification and get the best possible results at a personal level”, she said.

Cruz also believes that Angola is better prepared for the London games. “It has been able to compete more, and that is fundamental for competing at the highest level.” ■

z at the Nádia Cru 8 pics in 198 Seoul Olym

Angola's younge st Olympian aged 13

Bambino

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London 2012

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OLYMPICS

Pacavira, an early qualifier for London 2012, captured the hearts and imagination of sports fans as the best Angolan performer in the 2008 Beijing Olympics

Trawling for success and his main income comes from his job as a swimming teacher.

Freire oversees the training of Pacavira and other canoeists up to eight times a week. Preparation work consists of building up strength through both swimming and canoeing. Freire complains of a lack of official sponsorship for Pacavira and the sport, where there is even a shortage of the correct type of canoe for the competition.

Pacavira has only one competition level carbonfibre canoe. Regardless of this lack of support, he continues canoeing relentlessly for the love of the sport and a desire to please his compatriots in August.

“With the help of my trainer and support from my teammates, I’ve won medals dignifying the name of our country. I will do what I have to and continue to give joy to the Angolans,” he said.

Coach Francisco Freire is confident that Pacavira will deliver in London. He will not be the only Angolan

Pacavira’s mentor and coach is Francisco Freire, who shares his spartan lifestyle and dedication to improved performance. Freire is paid only a nominal salary to coach Pacavira and his fellow competitors, and he says that funding is always uncertain

in canoeing competitions. Pacavira will be joined by his partner in the sprint canoe doubles, Nelson Henriques, and female sprint canoe phenomenon Fátima António, who collected a bunch of gold medals in African competitions on her way to qualification.

The Olympic rowing lake (below) and nearby Windsor Castle, home to Queen Elizabeth II (above) London 2012

Fortunato Pacavira cuts a lonely, diminutive figure as he practices sprint canoeing on the still earlymorning waters of Luanda Bay, with the ever-rising dusty peach and grey skyscraper city as a backdrop.

Sprint canoeing involves kneeling in the craft and thrusting oneself forward with a single oar. Pacavira personifies the tough Olympian spirit of the amateur, giving his all to improve his performance.

An early qualifier for London 2012, Pacavira captured the hearts and imagination of sports fans as the best Angolan performer in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where he reached the semifinals in the 1,000-metre canoe sprint.

Aged 33, he still lives the life of an artisan fisherman, seeking sustenance close to where he trains. Not many athletes train in their workplace.

There is no added material glitz to his life as a result of his success at Beijing. His only sponsor is a soft drinks company that provides him with... soft drinks.

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‘ I plan to finish my course this year and have my third participation in the Olympic Games in London. I aim to take part in a final at world level’

From Kinaxixi to London João Matías, born in the heart of Luanda in Kinaxixi, began swimming as a five-year-old. As part of Angola’s diaspora, Matías has spent many years in Portugal, where he continued to develop his swimming at the traditional Sport Algés e Dafundo Club (founded 1915). Now 25 years old, Matías is a third-year telecommunication engineering student at Middlesex University in London and is preparing for the Olympics in Ealing, West London, with world-class trainers.

England, he says, has compensations that outweigh the famously inclement weather.

“It’s been a good experience in both academic and in sporting terms. I like the lifestyle, and a bit of cold every now and again doesn’t do you any harm. I plan to finish my course this year and have my third participation in the Olympic Games in London. I aim to take part in a final at world level.”

Matías hopes, as does his Angolan teammate Pedro Pinotes, to qualify for the Olympic finals on a minimum timing rather than by invitation, but concedes that it will be difficult. Matías’ main style event is the butterfly at 50 and 100 metres.

Although he is only two seconds over that timing, Matías laughs in agreement that in swimming terms it’s a “mountain to climb”.

Nevertheless, he says he will do his best. His training efforts are evidence of this. He practices in the pool from 5.30am to 8am every day.

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London 2012

Getty Images

– João Matías

OLYMPICS

Sweet medley Pedro Miguel Alves Pinotes, 22, was the very first Angolan athlete to qualify for London. Born in Viana near Luanda but based in Portugal, where he is studying for a master’s degree in civil engineering at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, he has captained Sporting de Portugal’s swimming team for the past four years.

Pinotes holds Angola’s record for the 400-metre medley and 200-metre breast stroke.

“I’ve got a great deal of expectations in taking part and being inside and living the unique spirit of the world’s largest sporting competition. It’ll be my first Olympic Games and I hope they will be registered in the best possible way for my career,” enthused Pinotes.

He is no stranger to England, having swum for Angola at the Manchester championship in 2008.

Pinotes says the aim of both his club, Sporting de Portugal (founded 1906), and the Angolan team are the same: the Olympics.

Angola’s Olympic swimming events will take place between July 28 and August 4. Pinotes will train mostly in Lisbon but will also do a high-intensity course at Rio Maior, 100km from Lisbon, with the rest of Angola’s Olympic team in July. While in preparation for the events in Lisbon, Pinotes has the services of the head coach and a personal trainer at Sporting de Portugal.

Pinotes will also take part in the British Championship in the first week of March. This is a great rehearsal for the Olympics as it will take place in the same venue as the London games – the Aquatic Centre. “It’s very important to get to know the place as soon as possible so that everything goes as expected in July,” he said.

Until now, all Angolan swimmers at the Olympics had been invited to compete rather than having qualified by reaching minimum times. Pinotes, however, was the first Angolan to reach the minimum in the case of the 400-metre medley. Between March 1 and June 18, he hopes to dip below the minimum for the 200m medley as well.

Pinotes said he believed the Angolan swimming team would be composed of himself and Mariana Henriques, and he hoped João Matías will also qualify

ght) on the ri Pinotes ( Pinotes

London 2012

The London Aquatics Centre

by beating the minimum time.

Pinotes has set himself the tough goal of achieving 4 minutes and 20 seconds for the 400-metre medley. The minimum qualifying time is 4 minutes and 25 seconds and his personal best is 4 minutes and 23.6 seconds.

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High hopes for Golden girls

Angop

London 2012

Angola’s female basketball team gained a timely morale-boost ahead of the London Olympics by taking gold in October’s African Championship in Mali. The returning trophy-winners brought Luandans on to the street to celebrate and have added momentum to the swelling support for the ‘golden girls’ in London.

Nacissela Maurício, team captain and leader on the court of the victorious team, is poised for the challenge. She was voted not only Angola’s “most valued player” in the African Championship but also a member of its dream team alongside her teammate Sónia Guadalupe.

“We have our objectives as any team that classifies for this competition does. Given that we are the best team in Africa, we’re going to the Olympic Games to defend our title well in the name of Africa and for Angola,” Maurício told Universo.

Ahead of London 2012 the Angolan team will play in the Stankovic Cup in China and will also do some training in the United States.

Angop

And the rest...

© Guilherme Dionizio/Demotix/Demotix/Corbis

Angolan judo champion sets sights on London Antônia de Fátima, better known as 'Faia', is just one step away from qualifying for the London Olympics. The judoka, from the Santos FC sports club, must first excel at the African Championship in Morocco in April before stopping off for intensive training in Algeria on her way to England.

No stopping Angola's female handball team Angola's women's handball team were unbeaten en route to qualifying for London 2012 in January's African championship in Morocco. The team carried off their eleventh African championship, leading observers to forecast the Angolans would dominate African handball for at least another 5 years.

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iStock

Timeline – Angola’s Olympics

1980 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 Moscow Seoul Barcelona Atlanta Sydney Athens

Beijing

1980 Moscow

1996 Atlanta

2008 Beijing

Angola’s first participation in the Olympic Games

Angola achieved its best results to date in the US

was in Moscow 32 years ago. Just 13 competitors

Olympics held in Atlanta. The delegation was made

33 competitors: 1 canoeist, 1 athlete, 2 swimmers

travelled to the capital of the then Soviet Union: 7 in

up of 31 athletes, with numbers boosted by Angola’s

swimming, 3 in athletics and 3 in boxing.

handball team and basketball team. There was also a

Standard-bearer – Fernando Lopes

swimmer and a marksman.

Standard-bearer – Palmira Barbosa

1988 Seoul Angola’s

delegation

2000 Sydney Korean

Angola had 31 participants: 2 athletics, 12 basketball

Olympics totalled 20, consisting of 9 athletes and

at

the

South

players, 2 swimmers, 1 shooter and 14 handball players.

11 swimmers.

Standard-bearer – Nádia Cruz

and 2 beach volleyball, 16 handball and 11 basketball players. Canoe brought the best result for Angola by far.

Standard-bearer – Fortunato Pacavira

2012 London

Standard-bearer – Nádia Cruz

1992 Barcelona

2004 Athens

The number of Angolans participating in the games

Thirty athletes: 12 basketball players, 1 judoka,

in Spain rose to its ceiling level of 33. This large

1 swimmer, 14 handball players and 2 in athletics.

contingent was made up of 12 male basketball

Standard-bearer – Ângelo Victoriano

players, 7 hockey players, 4 athletes, 3 judo competitors, 3 sailors, 3 swimmers and a boxer.

Standard-bearer – Jean Jacques

London's new Olympic Stadium

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A B M E S YO U

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A B M A S E W Guito Moreto / AgĂŞncia O Globo

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William Volcov - Brazil Photo Press

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ngola’s contribution to Brazil was the subject of a winning samba procession group or ‘school’ in Rio de Janeiro’s annual carnival this February. The Vila Isabel samba school was responsible for the feat and was awarded the Gold Standard prize amidst rapturous applause.

Vila Isabel is a social and cultural club in one of Rio’s less affluent suburbs. It has a long connection with Angola through its leading light – singer-songwriter Martinho da Vila, a regular visitor to Angola over the past four decades.

The specially-written song for the samba school titled You Semba There... While I Samba Here illustrated the Angolan roots of Brazil’s most characteristic music. ‘Semba’ is Angola’s original name for the rhythm.

The Brazilian press said Vila Isabel showed how Angola’s links with Brazil go far beyond a shared race and use of the Portuguese language.

Rio’s famous carnival parade involves 13 samba schools whose members march and dance along a purpose-built elongated stadium. Each samba block has a thematic song, allegorical floats and extravagantlycostumed marchers and percussionists. Each group of marchers, known as ‘wings,’ wear costumes called ‘fantasies’ which can cost several hundred dollars. These costumes illustrate, often only vaguely, some aspect of the school’s subject.

Vila Isabel’s floats reflected Angola’s exuberant landscape and wildlife.

One scantily-clad dancer represented Angola’s riches by wearing clothes made up of the precious raw materials found there.

The samba block also had wings made up of marchers dressed in costumes imitating zebras, leopards, giraffes and African birds. A float with realistic nodding animals including very tall giraffes was one of the highlights of Vila Isabel’s parade and brought spectators to their feet.

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U O Y

A B SEM

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A B M A

Vila Isabel’s floats reflected Angola’s exuberant landscape and wildlife

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Custódio Coimbra / Agência O Globo

Another float had a golden version of Angola’s emblematic baobab tree. This tree is considered sacred by some as well as the source of water and medicines, and even a place to hide in times of conflict.

A third float alluded to the court of Queen Njinga. Born in 1580, she was widely seen as a heroic defender of Angola from foreign domination. A fourth float, surrounded by marchers dancing the samba alternately slowly and quickly, was in the shape of a superbly-lit galleon which represented the arrival of a slave ship in Rio from Luanda.

Another float showed how the Angolans and other slaves adapted to the new conditions of living in Brazil, developing their religious and cultural beliefs clandestinely, as well as later performing their music and dance traditions in public spaces such as town squares.

The rearguard float of the parade was a tribute to Martinho da Vila entitled ‘The Black King Martinho and his Court’ where the singer regally accepted cheers from the grandstands.

Martinho has long been considered a cultural ambassador between Brazil and Angola. He has brought Angolan music to Brazil and has also been instrumental in arranging concert tours by major Brazilian artists such as Clara Nunes, Chico Buarque and Djavan. ■

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Rudy Trindade/Frame

Roberto Moreyra / AgĂŞncia O Globo

MALANGE ANGOLA’S BOOM PROVINCE

BY LULA AHRENS

Malange celebrated its 80th birthday on February 13 and the city and province had plenty of reasons to party – thanks to a major surge in tourism, agriculture, infrastructure, business, education and social welfare Photograph: Kalandula Falls by Jose Manuel Lima da Silva

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Paul | EcoTur

MALANGE

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nyone revisiting the city of Malange after an interval of several years would immediately notice the new railway station, revamped central square and renovated government buildings.

But what they would notice most of all are the armies of street cleaners in bright orange suits who turn out every evening to keep the city centre spick-and-span.

The visitor would also notice several new schools, water installations, two large modern hotels being renovated and a theatre under construction. They could chose to dine and sleep at the excellent Ajomal pension-restaurant Curral da Mula, which opened its doors a year ago, or opt for a room in the beautiful old colonial hotel-restaurant Palácio Regina.

The peaceful city of Malange was founded in the middle of the 19th century on the crossroads of important trading routes and soon became one of Angola’s most prosperous agricultural regions.

Completion of the Luanda to Malange railway in 1909 stimulated agricultural trade with the capital Luanda. This railway was modernised and restored to full operation in early 2011 after an 18-year-long interruption.

Malange’s agro-industrial potential, on hold for around three decades, is now being rediscovered on a large scale. One of the projects recently initiated by the government is the Capanda Agro-industrial Zone, next to the Capanda hydropower dam on the River Kwanza. The zone covers 400,000 hectares and is managed by the Capanda Agro-industrial Development Company (Sodepac).

Giant farms Fazenda Pungo Andongo, Fazenda Pedras Negras and Biocom provide great examples of what can be achieved in the area. Even Angola’s traditional coffee production has been resurrected, with the Kalandula municipality producing 10,000 tonnes last year.

New bridges improve Malange’s communications Malange province also has serious tourism potential. The spectacular Kalandula Falls on the River Lucala, at 105 metres high and 400 the National Park of Kangandala was reopened metres wide, are the second highest in Africa. in 2008.

Visitors to the waterfalls can stay at the A tourism and information centre will be built popular Yolaka Hotel. The mysterious Pedras in Malange this year, and the government has Negras (black rocks) at Pungo Andongo are plans to stimulate arts and crafts in the region. another tourist magnet. Pungo Andongo, which Another crucial factor in Malange’s comeback once served as the capital of the Kingdom of is that it has become much more accessible. The road from Luanda to Dondo, N’dalatando and Malange has been rebuilt. There is a new road from Zenza do Itombe to N’dalatando which shortens the journey to Malange from Luanda by about 70km. The bridge to Kangandala has also been restored.

After a two-year closure, Malange Airport reopened its Ndongo, enshrines many myths and legends. doors in December 2010 and now offers several One of them has left ‘physical evidence’: TAAG flights a week. Railway passengers have King Ngola Kiluanji and his daughter Queen been able to travel from Luanda to Malange by Njinga’s footprints are said to be embedded train since early 2011. in the rocks. Legend has it that Queen Njinga Malange is also getting a major social boost. was caught bathing in a brook at the foot of Unemployment is decreasing and welfare the Pedras Negras by soldiers. She fled, but her programmes have been introduced. There has footprints remained. also recently been an impressive increase in the Kangandala, Angola’s smallest national park, number of banks in the region. is about 30km from Malange and covers some Malange now boasts two new mineral 600 sq km. It was originally water-bottling plants, an iron factory and an founded to protect Angola’s industrial ceramics factory, and a slaughterhouse national symbol the Palanca is soon to be built. The region is also seeing Negra, a giant sable antelope significant improvements in its water and that was discovered in the electricity supply. area in 1963.

Over the last three years a medical faculty They were feared to has been created offering advanced courses be extinct after 1982, in pedagogy, theology and maths. New high until a hidden camera schools and primary schools can be seen in all in Kangandala National parts of the city. The Eiffel School (described Park captured pictures of in more detail on page 37), offers a remarkable the rare antelope in 2005. example of the educational progress Malange After decades of closure is experiencing.

Ido Dillisse

Malange province also has serious tourism potential. The spectacular Kalandula waterfalls are the second tallest in Africa

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Where on Earth?

Luanda-Malange railway – a year on

Lula Ahrens

Mark Clydesdale

Kamene M Traça

After a break of 18 years, Angola’s LuandaMalange railway has been fully operational since January 2011. Rebuilding of the railway began in 2005 and the 424km track was relaid and 16 new stations built along the route. Train company Caminhos de Ferro de Luanda (CFL) offers passenger and freight services three times a week between Luanda’s Viana station to the centre of Malange and back at very competitive prices.

Travelling from Luanda to Malange by train takes almost nine hours compared to five to six hours by car, but the train offers extra comfort, safety, good service, cleanliness, TV entertainment and a pleasant atmosphere on board. It is only a short stroll to the large, comfortable on-board bar where passengers can order drinks and snacks. The scores of waving and laughing children at every station along the line also make this journey worthwhile.

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Woman power

Dona Ana María Seja, president of Malange’s Women’s Association, is a prominent figure in the province and city of Malange. She and her husband José Manuel Domingos, vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce and assistant coordinator of the Administration of Malange, own Group Ajomal, a company active in the fields of general trading, hospitality, industry, agriculture and transport services.

Ana María Seja, locally-known as Dona Seja, started working at the age of 17, first as a nurse and then in business and commerce. As the president of the local government-supported Women’s Association, she now supports female enterprises from small businesses to shop owners and market traders.

Legalisation, education, emancipation, literacy and the battle against poverty and unemployment form the core of the association’s activities.

“Our 594 members fall into three different classes,” says Dona Seja. “Businesswomen are in class A; class C represents women who work in the informal market; and class B is for anyone falling between classes A and C.” The association provides women with the paperwork necessary for them to get a foothold in the formal trading market. “This allows them to travel from one region to the next, own a shop and develop their commercial activities by getting funds from banks. We’ve already

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Lula Ahrens

MALANGE

Drying cassava flour in the sun

managed to legalise the commercial activities of about 15 market women so far. Our association is powerful,” she says. “I am very proud to work with Malange’s market women. They are extremely dedicated.”

Education is another priority of the Women’s Association. “It is the key to women’s success; our literacy campaign has proved to be hugely successful. It forms part of our battle against unemployment among women, which in its turn boosts emancipation,” says Dona Seja. “If women read, write and work, they will no longer be subordinate to their husbands. That reduces domestic violence.”

Ajomal Farm Dona Seja is no stranger to agricultural production. She owns Fazenda Ajomal, a farm which produces food for local hospitals and medical centres. “Fazenda Ajomal has a contract with the provincial government; it finances our activities,” she explains. “The government

invests a lot in the agricultural sector as part of a strategy to combat poverty.”

Kitchen manager Augusta Clara takes us on a tour of the recently renovated General Hospital’s spotless kitchen, where the fresh farm products are turned into hearty, tasty meals.

The contract has been in place since 2003.

“Six hundred patients are currently being fed with the farm’s products,” she says.

Fazenda Ajomal, a 45-minute drive from the city of Malange, covers 1,888 hectares. Around 250 hectares are used for farming and 638 hectares to keep cattle, pigs and poultry.

“Another 1,000 hectares of unused land could be exploited in the future if we get government support,” says farm manager Moisés Boano Wilson. “Forestry could be part of that.”

The farm was set up in 1997 by Dona Seja and her husband and is managed by her relatives.

Among its wide variety of produce are beans, pineapple, bananas, lemons, cassava, tomatoes, corn, oranges, peanuts, cabbages and passion fruit.

Farm produce goes direct to hospital kitchen

Lula Ahrens

Lula Ahrens

MALANGE

‘We’ve already managed to legalise the commercial activities of about 15 market women so far.

Our association is powerful’ – Dona Ana María Seja

Last year the farm produced 25 tonnes of peppers, 35 tonnes of cabbages, 320 tonnes of tomatoes, 112 tonnes of bananas, 12 tonnes of beans, 150 tonnes of corn and 6 tonnes of cow and goat meat.

With more equipment the farm could be even more productive. “What we need is a fence and a seeder,” says Dona Seja. Farm manager Wilson adds: “We’ve only got one tractor. We need at least three tractors and industrial pumps for irrigation in case of drought, which has affected our production since November 2011.”

Dona Seja also owns a guest house-restaurant, Curral da Mula, which opened last year in Malange’s city centre, and a small percentage of the farm’s produce supplies its kitchen.

The name Curral da Mula (corral for the mule) dates back to the 1970s, before Angolan independence. It used to be a building where people kept cattle until slaughtering and selling them. When Curral da Mula became a restaurant, it kept the name.

“In 1994 my husband and I set up a small kitchen. Bit by bit we turned it into a restaurant and a pension, both in the same building,” says Dona Seja.

The restaurant is well known and popular among locals. The pension, with eight clean, pleasant, colonial-style rooms, priced between $150 and $200 a night including breakfast, is located in the city centre of Malange, at a tenminute walk from the railway station.

Sugar, Ethanol & Energy Biocom is set to produce a staggering 250,000 tonnes of sugar when the project reaches its maturity. “Angola’s annual market demand exceeds 400,000 tonnes per year,” says a Biocom director during a tour of the plantation and factory, which is still being completed.

The sugar production process takes place in giant tanks immediately in front of Biocom’s storage sheds. “Sugar cane has a lifespan of four to five years,” he says. “In the second phase,

ugar sweetens S Angola’s future

Surrounded by vast sugar cane fields, with the mysterious Pungo Andongo rocks looming in the background, lies the bright red sugar mill run by the Angola Bioenergy Company (Biocom). Its ambitions are as impressive as its location.

Biocom, a partnership between Sonangol, Damer and Odebrecht, is currently Angola’s only sugar and ethanol-producing company. Created in 2006, it covers 30,000 hectares in Cacuso, Malange, 1,450 hectares of which are already covered with sugarcane. In the near future, Biocom’s sugarcane will cover 25,000 hectares.

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MALANGE

Biocom will double the production to 500,000 tons of sugar a year.”

At present, all of Angola’s sugar is currently imported, and demand is increasing due to population growth. According to Biocom, per capita demand in Angola will also rise. It is 12 kilos per person per year now, compared with 50 kilos per person per year in Brazil. As Angola is an emerging economy, per capita demand is expected to soon reach 30 or 40 kilos per year.

Around 70 per cent of Biocom’s sugar cane is turned into sugar. The remaining 30 per cent is used for ethanol and the production of electricity.

Electric power is produced by burning sugar cane waste. The vapour released during the process is channelled into a high-pressure turbine.

The energy that is generated as a result can light up a city of up to 400,000 people, Biocom says.

Just 40 per cent of Biocom’s energy produced next year will meet Malange’s demand, which means 60 per cent can be sent to the rest of Angola. This percentage will gradually increase.

When the project reaches its maturity, Biocom will be capable of producing 250,000

This agro-industrial park covers an area of 400,000 hectares, which already includes investments such as Gesterra’s Pungo Andongo and Pedras Negras farms with 35,000 hectares, Biocom’s 30,000 hectares of land and other initiatives. The role of Sodepac is that of a pro-local development agency responsible for attracting investors and social projects in the region.

Biocom also has a very strong social component. When the project reaches maturity, it will directly employ 1,400 workers. Biocom says it wants to help people from nearby communities to profit from its business by creating jobs and training them.

Sugar cane production also has the advantage of being environmentally friendly. There’s no pollution resulting from the production process, just water vapour. The fluid that is produced during distillation is very rich in potassium, nitrogen and phosphor which returns nutrients to the soil.

Odebrecht, together with Sodepac, Gesterra, Biocom and other players, has a social development project – Kulonga Pala

Biocom’s energy could light up a city of up to 400,000 people litres of ethanol a day, which may be used as fuel and also to blend with petrol and diesel. Ethanol has never been used as a fuel before in Angola but is well-established in Brazil, where over 85 per cent of new cars can run on either ethanol or petrol or a combination of the two.

The development of Biocom and other agribusiness near Malange stemmed from the Brazilian company Odebrecht’s first project in Angola, the Capanda hydroelectric power plant.

Work began in 1984 in partnership with the Russian company Technopromexport.

Odebrecht noticed that Malange was perfect for agro-industrial exploitation; its characteristics are very similar to those of Brazilian cerrado – the savannah grasslands in Brazil’s central plateau region – one of the areas developed and responsible for Brazil’s agricultural boom in recent years.

The Angolan government soon began to invest in Malange’s infrastructure. In 2008, the government created the Capanda Agro-industrial Development Company (Sodepac), which is responsible for the development of an agroindustrial hub in the region.

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Kukula, which has been educating Malange’s local communities on how to benefit from their province’s economic development since 2008.

Kulonga Pala Kukula has three lines of action: health promotion, citizenship development and farm-income generation. These communities produced 52,000 tonnes of vegetables and 36,000 tonnes of cassava flour in 2011. They sell the surplus to Biocom and other companies such as regional meal supplier Leonor Carrinho, and to Luanda.

“About 1,200 local people are involved in this project. In 2012 we’ll be working with 20 communities,” a Sodepac spokesman says. The main point is to prepare people to take advantage of the coming prosperity.

There is another broader, social side-effect to Biocom’s commercial activities in Malange. Sugar and energy in Angola will become significantly cheaper and, therefore, more widely accessible than the current imported products.

“Angola will even export sugar and ethanol to other countries, probably around 2019,” the spokesman predicts. ■

João Marcelo de Souza

MALANGE MALANGE

Capanda power dam, Angola’s largest

Nicolas Taieb

The pupils do not pay any school fees, which means even the poorest can enrol. The school’s popularity is growing so fast and enrolment rising so quickly that only the most talented candidates are currently admitted.

Taieb points to a miniature replica of the Eiffel School, which has a prominent place on the wall of one of the classrooms. “The student who made this, Pereira Francisco Gaspar, told me that he used to sleep on the street sometimes and washed himself in the river every morning before going to school,” he says.

“He had problems at home, and our school was his substitute home. He created this replica of his own

school and other Angolan schools is the size of our classes,” Taieb says. “In Malange, the average number of pupils per class is between 50 and 80, even though the official maximum is 40. We’ve also got more computers and laboratory equipment, and a revolutionary teaching method which stimulates

free will and kept working on it until late at night.”

Total was so impressed by Gaspar’s work that the 19-year-old student is currently doing a six-month internship designing miniature computer replicas at the oil major.

“The number one difference between this

pupils to be critical and ask questions.”

The four Total schools will soon participate in a general test. “With the results, we hope to inspire the Ministry of Education to broaden the scope of this bilateral project to the entire province of Malange, or even Angola,” Taieb says.

Lula Ahrens

Malange’s public-access Eiffel School is located on the edge of the city in a new building with extensive sports facilities. It is one of four quality high schools built in 2008 by French oil company Total as part of an agreement between Presidents José Eduardo dos Santos and Nicolas Sarkozy and Angola’s Ministry of Education.

“In 2009 we started teaching our first pupils, and last year the first intake of 48 students finished their exams. At least five of them will enter university this year with a grant from Total,” says school director Nicolas Taieb.

The 144 pupils who study here come from all layers of society and are divided into classes of 24 pupils each. Taieb himself trained the school’s 17 Angolan teachers, who are paid by the Angolan government.

Total finances the school buildings, maintenance and teaching equipment, and La Mission Française provides support for staff wages.

Nicolas Taieb

A school’s towering success

School director Nicolas Taieb

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LNG project start date revised

■ THE ANGOLA LNG project start-up date has been postponed by several weeks until May owing to a need for further tests, Sonangol has announced.

Ship ahoy ■ THE LATEST SHIP to join the

Stena

The project at Soyo is being developed by a consortium led by Chevron. Its partners are Sonangol, BP, Total and Eni. The LNG plant’s annual output will be 5.3 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas. The bulk of the product will be placed on the international market.

The project will make Angola self-sufficient in butane – and 125 million cubic feet a day will be used in electricity generation and as feedstock for petrochemicals.

Stena Sonangol Suezmax Pool is the 158,000 deadweight ton Stena Superior, owned by Stena and launched last September at the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard at Geoje, Korea.

Rosa José Marie Sumbe, wife of Baptista Sumbe, executive chairman of Sonangol Holdings Ltd, broke the traditional champagne bottle over the vessel’s bow at the naming ceremony.

The Stena Superior is a Suezmax tanker of an ultramodern, environmentally-friendly design capable of 15 per cent fuel savings compared to conventional Suezmax tankers.

It also has a double hull to help prevent leakage if damaged externally. The ship is 274 metres long and 48 metres wide and is the first of several sister ships that Stena is expected to add to the Stena Sonangol Suezmax Pool.

Editor’s note: This is a corrected version of the item published on Stena Superior in our December issue

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New health centres ■ SONANGOL DONATED THREE clinical analysis laboratories to

serve three health centres in the Sambizanga district of Luanda in February.

Previously, patients had to seek these services further afield.

The health centres are currently undertaking vaccination and educative campaigns against diseases such as polio, malaria and tetanus, and illnesses caused by parasites. Community agents are also disinfecting areas prone to cholera.

Sonangol helps launch school ■ A NEW PRIMARY school named 17 de Setembro was

inaugurated by Oil Minister José Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos in the Terra Nova district of Saurimo, Lunda Sul, on January 28.

The school has capacity for up to 1,000 pupils in its ten classrooms and was sponsored by Sonangol and its partners in Block 15. Over the following year a library and sports ground, refectory and amphitheatre will be added to the school site.

Kimesso Kissoka

SONANGOL NEWS IN BRIEF

Porto Amboim terminal opens Oil output to rise in 2014

■ ANGOLA’S OIL OUTPUT should rise to 2 million barrels per

day (bpd) in 2014 from its current level of 1.8 million bpd, Minister for Oil José Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos told Jornal de Angola. The extra output will come from new fields starting up in the next three years.

In the first nine months of 2011, Angola produced 500 million barrels of oil and exported 231 million barrels for which it received $25.6 billion dollars, he said. This was somewhat lower than expected because of “temporary production stoppages for maintenance”.

The minister said Angola had 465 petrol stations, 419 of them belonging to Sonangol. In addition, Angolan employees accounted for 57,572 of the total of 71,115 oil sector workers in the country.

■ THE PORTO AMBOIM Ocean Terminal (TOPA) operated

by Sonangol subsidiary Sonangol Logística was officially opened by former company board president Manuel Vicente in December before his appointment as Minister of State for Economic Co-ordination.

TOPA will receive oil products from the Luanda refinery and abroad, and store and dispatch them initially to Malange, Kwanza Sul and Kwanza Norte. The new terminal will relieve road traffic pressure from the coast of Luanda and its urban area, speeding up deliveries in the interior.

The TOPA terminal in Kwanza Sul has the capacity to hold 35,400 cu metres of fuel in nine tanks. Diesel will be the main product at 20,400 cu metres, followed by 12,000 cu metres of petrol and 3,000 cu metres of kerosene. The site will also have a laboratory for quality control as well as a firefighting unit.

Subsalt seismic survey underway ■ SONANGOL AND PARTNERS BP, Total and Statoil are jointly funding a 26,000 sq km

3D advanced seismic survey of five exploration blocks in the Kwanza/Benguela basins.

The blocks 24, 25, 38, 39 and 40 hold promising subsalt prospects.

With early access to the data, the operators will benefit from clearer images and gain more time to plan the exploration wells they have to drill over the next five years.

The survey vessel used to collect the data is Ramform Valiant, owned and operated

by Petroleum Geo-Services ASA. In February, Ramform Valiant was joined by another vessel, PGS Apollo, in data acquisition.

The process will last until the end of the year. Data processing began in March.

Sonangol has also signed an agreement for similar surveys from TGS-Nopec Geophysical Company covering 12,500 sq km. These will also target possible subsalt oil deposits in blocks 35, 36 and 37.

Lighter load for gas users fuel home, thanks to the introduction of a new lightweight canister. The ‘Levita’ weighs just 11 kilograms, less than half the weight of the traditional container.

Sonangol gas subsidiary Sonangol Gás Natural (Sonagás) says the Levita is not only safer, lighter, ergonomic and recyclable, but is also 15 per cent to 20 per cent cheaper than gas bottles currently on the market. The Levita will be used alongside the existing squatter gas canister.

The first 50,000 Levitas will be sold in Luanda, which accounts for 75 per cent of Angola’s butane gas market, before being rolled out to Angola’s provinces.

Kimesso Kissoka

■ SONANGOL’S DOMESTIC GAS users will now have less of a struggle carrying their

Kimesso Kissoka

Kimesso Kissoka

SONANGOL NEWS IN BRIEF

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BP p.l.c.

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ARCHAEOLOGY

Fossils unearthed

PERFORMANCE

Dance, Dance, Dance

TREASUREIN THE

CELLAR:

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FIGURED OUT SONANGOL NEWS BRIEFING EXPLORATION

Maersk Oil

Landscapes Recent discoveries in Angola’s deep-sea subsalt layer suggest the existence of huge oil deposits that hold out the promise of a golden future for the country

ANGOLA’S SUBSALT SONANGOL UNIVERSO

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iStock

SONANGOL NEWS BRIEFING

■ THE REASON FOR the well-founded optimism

is that Angola’s coastal geology matches almost exactly that of the rich oil-bearing coast of Brazil on the opposite side of the southern Atlantic.

The salt layer in Angola, laid down some 100 million years ago at a time when South America and Africa were a single, unified mega continent, closely replicates that of Brazil. The hope is that oil will be found in large quantities in the sedimentary rocks beneath, as it has in Brazil.

Brazil’s success is Angola’s benchmark. There, exploration began several years ago and has already yielded excellent results with estimated reserves of between 5 and 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

FIRST SUBSALT OIL DISCOVERIES

Maersk Oil and Gas Angola discovered traces of oil from subsalt exploratory well Azul-1 in early January. Azul-1 is located in the deep waters of Block 23 in the Kwanza Basin, and the find was made at a depth of 5,334 metres below sea-level and at a water depth of 923 metres. Preliminary interpretation of data indicated a potential flow capacity of over 3,000 barrels a day.

Maersk Oil Angola, the operator of Block 23, described the results of drilling as encouraging and the oil samples of “good quality”. The partners in Block 23 are Maersk with a 50 per cent stake, Svenska with 30 per cent and Sonangol P&P with 20 per cent.

Cobalt International Energy made an earlier discovery in Block 21 from the Cameia-1 well in December. Drilling to a total depth of 4,887 metres and at a sea-depth of 1,682 metres, Cobalt confirmed “the presence of a very thick, continuous, high-quality reservoir saturated with light oil”.

Cameia-1 had a daily flow rate of 5,010 barrels with 405,000 cubic metres of gas. “Based upon our analysis of the test data, we believe the well

would have the potential to produce in excess of 20,000 bpd,” says Cobalt, describing the find as “extraordinary” and “a world-class quality carbonate reservoir”.

As block operator, Cobalt has a 40 per cent stake and its partners are Sonangol P&P (20 per cent), Nazaki Oil and Gáz SA (30 per cent) and Alper Oil (10 per cent).

PRODUCTION CONTRACTS SIGNED

Sonangol signed subsalt operating and production sharing contracts with seven companies on December 20. The partnering companies were America’s Cobalt and ConocoPhillips, Britain’s BP, Spain’s Repsol, France’s Total, Italy’s Eni and Norway’s Statoil.

At the signing ceremony, Sonangol’s then board president Manuel Vicente described the Kwanza Basin discoveries as the beginning of a “new era for the Angolan oil industry”. Referring to recent discoveries, he said that “what we were looking for has been found and now we have the results that encourage us to continue”.

A total of 11 production sharing contracts were signed after public auctions.

Jean-Michel Lavergne, director-general

Subsalt or presalt?

The salt layer is located at a depth varying between 2,000 and 5,000 metres, mostly below the sea.

The oil underneath the layer is also often called somewhat confusingly the ‘pre-salt’.

The reason for this is that geologists designate each layer from the starting point of the Earth’s core with each subsequent layer coming before or ‘pre’ the next.

For those outside the geology profession, who quite reasonably view the Earth from the surface downward, the ‘pre-salt’ concept is somewhat confusing because it gives the impression that that layer is before the salt layer when drilling. Hence Universo shares the preference for the term ‘subsalt’ as this clearly indicates it is in fact below the salt.

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Block Operator Block numbers BP

19/11 and 24/11

Cobalt 20/11 Repsol 22/11 Total

25/11 and 40/11

Eni 35/11 ConocoPhillips

36/11 and 37/11

Statoil

38/11 and 39/11

of Total E&P Angola, said the signings of the production sharing contracts was an historic day for Angola, and there were great hopes that there would be many discoveries with the opening up of the Kwanza Basin.

Total is reputedly the largest foreign investor and operator of research and prospecting in the country.

Martyn Morris, regional president for BP Angola, said the signings marked a new era in the search for good results. “All this was possible thanks to the common effort of the block partners and to the attitude and productivity of Sonangol,” he added.

BRAZIL’S SUBSALT BONANZA

Brazil’s subsalt layer covers some 149,000 sq km and reaches out up to 300km from the shore.

It stretches some 800 kilometres along the coast from Santa Catarina state as far north as Espírito Santo state. Sandwiched between the two states are Brazil’s leading oil state, Rio de

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Ocean

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Traditional subsea oil deposits Salt layer Subsalt

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Janeiro, and the industrial powerhouse that is São Paulo state.

Brazil has the technology, expertise and manufacturing capability to support its efforts in cutting-edge drilling and production.

Brazilian state oil company Petrobras SA embarked on seeking subsalt oil in 2004 with plans to drill even deeper wells in its offshore fields in the highly-productive Santos Basin.

Petrobras discovered condensate in 2006 at 5,000 metres below sea level and struck oil just below the salt layer. A further seven wells were sunk and all encountered high-quality oil of high

market value. After extended well tests, Petrobras processed its first oil in June 2009.

A world-leader in deep-sea drilling, Petrobras believes exploiting Brazil’s subsalt layer is both technically and economically feasible.

The added reserves from the subsalt layer have led Petrobras to forecast a more than doubling of current oil output from 2.77 million bpd to 6.42 million bpd by 2020.

Sonangol has also gained some experience in subsalt drilling in Brazil. Sonangol Starfish, a subsidiary of Sonangol EP, discovered oil in one of Brazil’s Campos Basin subsalt areas in

November in a block where it had previously drilled without success.

The successful find was made in the Gaivota C-M-622 well where Sonangol learnt important lessons on subsalt operations that hopefully might be applied back home in Angola.

All of Brazil’s subsalt potential is currently understood to be offshore, while Angola has the advantage of having around 20 per cent of its subsalt layer onshore.

The US Geological Survey forecasts that Angola’s subsalt layer could contain as much as 30 billion barrels of oil. ■

SONANGOL UNIVERSO

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Proudly Angolan

Sonangol was founded in February 1976 to promote the sustainable growth of the national oil industry. Today , this principle still holds through as it ensures the continued expansion of the sector for all Angolans