Africa Oil & Gas: Low price of oil leads Sonangol to cancel public tenders

Angola’s state oil company Sonangol has cancelled public tenders for blocks in the onshore areas of the Kwanza and Lower Congo basins due to changes in the assumptions underlying its launch, Sonangol said in a statement.

The initial objective of the bids was, according to Sonangol, to give Angolan entrepreneurs and companies opportunities to develop exploration activities but “a considerable drop in the price of oil and the economic and financial situation of the country negatively affected the viability of oil the concessions.”

Sonangol announced on 1 December 2015 that it had set up eight contracting groups to explore oil in two of the country’s basins, but for which 10 blocks were originally planned.

The blocks in question were part of a tender for onshore exploration in those two basins that, according to Sonangol, may represent more than half of the country’s known reserves, that is, at least 7 billion barrels of oil. (macauhub)