Angola Outlines Plans for Multi-Year Oil and Gas Licensing Rounds From 2026

Angola plans to repeat its first multi-year licensing round for oil and gas fields from 2026 as the country aims to boost production and investment, a senior government energy official said on Thursday.

The first multi-year auction for 50 onshore and offshore blocks was for 2019-2025, as Angola seeks to halt a sharp decline in crude oil production from mature oil fields.

“We have started working on a plan for after 2025 and are currently carrying out our exploration strategy, which includes the evaluation of different sedimentary basins of the country,” said Alcides Andrade, board member of Angola’s National Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency. ANPG) said.

“This is an aggressive approach that we believe we should have,” he said, adding that it was unclear how many blocks in total could be captured at this stage.

Production in the country, Africa’s second-largest crude oil producer after Nigeria, has stabilized at just over 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) after peaking at nearly 2 million barrels per day in 2008.

Speaking at an energy conference in Cape Town, Andrade said 35 concessions have been awarded so far in the first four licensing rounds of the multi-annual strategy.

“The plan is to make nearly 41 concessions by the end of this year and nearly 50 concessions next year,” he said.

Andrade said ANPG estimates more than $60 billion in new investment will flow into existing concessions over the next five years, with “tens of billions” more investment coming from new licensees in the future.

(Reuters – Reporting by Wendell Roelf, Editing by Ros Russell)