The National Agency of Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG) have finally disclosed the selected preferred bidders of the country 2023 onshore licensing bid round. The agency in its capacity as National Concessionaire and holder of mining rights for prospecting, research, evaluation, development and production of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons throughout Angola and acting as National Concessionaire, under the terms of Presidential Decree No. 86/18, of April 2, makes public the result of the Public Tender for the Lower Congo and Kwanza Onshore Basins, open to national or foreign entities, which resulted in the qualification of companies and the formation of the Contractor Groups below.

12 (twelve) oil blocks will be put up for tender, 4 (four) located in the Onshore Basin of the Lower Congo ( CON 2, CON 3, CON 7 and CON 8 ) and the other 8 (eight) in the Onshore Kwanza Basin ( KON 1, KON 3, KON 7, KON 10, KON 13, KON 14, KON 15 and KON 19 ). The estimated potential of the blocks described (STOOIP) is 1 560 MMBO for the Lower Congo Basin and 5 440 MMBO for the Kwanza Basin.

QUALIFICATION OF COMPANIES

The process was based on the evaluation of the Requirements for acquiring the status of Associate of the National Concessionaire, namely Operator (financial, technical capacity and suitability) and Non-Operator (financial capacity and suitability), established in Articles 4 and 5 of DP no. 86/18 as indicated in the table below:

CONSTITUTION OF CONTRACTOR GROUPS

The final score resulted from the evaluation of the proposals received and the Requirements for Membership of the National Concessionaire, as described in the Competition Rules and Procedures, resulting in the composition of the Contractor Groups below:

In the coming days, ANPG will notify the winning companies regarding the date and place to begin the negotiation process for Production Sharing Contracts, a stage that should carry out the award.

The National Concessionaire communicates, on the other hand, that i) blocks with no Operator (CON 7 and KON 7) are available for the creation of Contractor Groups, ii) blocks with unsatisfactory proposals (CON 3, KON 10 and KON 15) and iii) blocks with a lack of proposals (KON 1, KON 3 and KON 14). The respective selection process must comply with the terms established in paragraphs 4, 5 and 6, of Article 44 of Law no. 10/04, of 12 November (Petroleum Activities Law), in conjunction with Article 10 of the Decree Presidential no. 86/18, of April 2nd.

Regarding the blocks without an Operator, we note that the company Enagol qualified as a Non-Operator, with a 10% participation interest in Blocks CON 7 and KON 7, with 90% participation interest in the two blocks.

However, for Block KON 15 with unsatisfactory proposals, the company Sonangol was qualified as Operator with a participation interest of 40%, and the company Afentra as Non-Operator with 45%, being available to interested companies that have have been qualified as Associates of the National Concessionaire in this competition, 15% participation interest in the block.