The French multinational petroleum corporation TotalEnergies and Angola’s national oil company, Sonangol, entered into a framework agreement to investigate the potential development of the initial offshore drilling project in the Kwanza basin. This abundant and extensive oil field is located approximately 150 kilometres to the southwest of the country’s capital, Luanda.
The provisional agreement inked in May between Sonangoal, TotalEnergies EP Angola, and Agência Nacional de Petróleo, Gás e Biocombustíveis (ANPG) will pave the way for the future development of the Cameia and Golfinho oilfields, located on Blocks 20 and 21 of the Kwanza Basin.
TotalEnergies, headquartered in Paris and ranked as the 21st largest company in the world by Forbes in 2023, would hold a majority stake in the development, as it already possesses substantial interests in six other floating production storage and offloading facilities (FPSOs) within the Angolan market.
The project is a joint venture with Sonangol, a state-owned enterprise tasked with stewardship over Angola’s vast subsurface energy reserves.
Unsurprisingly, plans for the development that have come out of the provisional agreement point to one of Sonangol’s signature initiatives in recent years: sustainability.
According to preliminary plans, the Kwanza Basin development would generate electricity from a combined cycle turbine and implement a zero-flaring policy, which would reduce the facility’s carbon emissions. This comes as Sonangol has invested heavily in new facilities and practices to both decarbonise Angola’s domestic energy industry and export to Western markets affordable green energy sources.
Sonangol is expected to complete construction next year on a new facility in Barro do Dande that will produce green ammonia, a substance that will allow Angola to efficiently export green hydrogen—a low-emission energy source—from sub-Saharan Africa to high-demand markets in Europe.
The Angolan government is planning to privatise the company gradually, aiming to sell 30 percent of the company’s equity to private investors by 2026.
