Africa Oil & Gas: French-Angolan consortium to prospect for oil in São Tomé and Principe

São Tomé and Príncipe’s National Oil Agency has begun negotiations with a consortium to sign an oil exploration contract in Block 01 of the archipelago’s Exclusive Economic Zone, the agency’s chief executive said.

The consortium includes Total E&P Activités Pétrolières and Angola’s oil and gas company Sonangol.

Orlando Pontes, who was speaking on the sidelines of a meeting with São Tome’s Prime Minister, accompanied by the director of Total E&P Activités Pétrolières, Charles Fernandes, representing the consortium, said that the agreement should be signed “in a few weeks.”

The negotiations are the result the interest shown by Total E & P Activités Pétrolières in prospecting for oil in that block following a public tender launched by the National Oil Agency last May.

In addition to the Exclusive Economic Zone, São Tomé and Príncipe has a joint venture with Nigeria, based on a treaty signed in 2001 that establishes 60% of revenues for the Nigerian State and the remaining 40% for the São Tomé archipelago. (source: Macauhub)