Africa Oil & Gas: Angola’s Sonangol puts new blocks for oil prospecting up for auction

Angolan state oil company Sonangol is expected to hold auctions for new oil blocks at the end of 2018, or beginning of 2019, and the number of onshore and offshore blocks to be made available to interested parties has yet to be determined, according to an official document.

The only currently open tender is for a 40% stake in oil exploration blocks 21/09 and 20/11, which until the end of 2017 were held by US company Cobalt International Energy.

The conflict that has pitted the US company against Sonangol since August 2016 was resolved in December 2017 when the Angolan concessionaire agreed to pay US$500 million for the holdings in those two oil blocks.

Angolan oil concessionaire Sonangol in May 2017 cancelled public tenders for bidding on blocks located in two land basins in the country, which were attributed in 2015, as they were not viable at a time when oil prices were below US$50 per barrel.

The oil company also recalled that “the considerable drop in the price of a barrel of oil and the economic and financial situation of the country and the world had a negative impact on the viability of the oil concessions,” in addition to the “long period since the launch of the tender,” in 2014. source: Macauhub