Universo 35

SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Universo www.universo-magazine.com

SEPTEMBER 2012

KWANZA NORTE: Ripening economic prospects

BRUSH WITH STARDOM: Angola’s painters in perspective

CHANGING FACE OF LUANDA: Curtain raiser on the city’s makeover

Korea Expo

ISSUE 35 – SEPTEMBER 2012

INSIDE:

oil and gas news

Universo is the international magazine of Sonangol

Inside this issue

Board Members Francisco de Lemos José Maria (President), Mateus de Brito, Anabela Fonseca, Sebastião Gaspar Martins, Fernando Roberto, Baptista Sumbe, Raquel Vunge Sonangol Department for Communication & Image Director João Rosa Santos Corporate Communications Assistants Nadiejda Santos, Lúcio Santos, Sarissari Diniz, José Mota, Beatriz Silva, Paula Almeida, Sandra Teixeira, Marta Sousa, Hélder Sirgado, Kimesso Kissoka Publisher Sheila O’Callaghan Editor John Kolodziejski Art Director Tony Hill Sub Editor Ron Gribble Circulation Manager Matthew Alexander Project Consultants Nathalie MacCarthy Mauro Perillo Group President John Charles Gasser Universo is produced by Impact Media Custom Publishing. The views expressed in the publication are not necessarily those of Sonangol or the publishers.

Reproduction in whole or in part without prior permission is prohibited.

This magazine is distributed to a closed circulation. To receive a free copy: circulation@universo-magazine.com Circulation: 17,000

Davenport House 16 Pepper Street London E14 9RP United Kingdom Tel + 44 20 7510 9595 Fax +44 20 7510 9596 sonangol@impact-media.com www.universo-magazine.com Cover: Expo Digital Gallery at the 2012 World Expo site, Yeosu, South Korea Image by: Jeon Heon-Kyun/epa/Corbis

O

ur September issue kicks off with a visit to the 2012 World Expo in South Korea, where Angola’s stand showcased the country’s efforts at reducing greenhouse gases and preserving the West African manatee, an aquatic mammal.

The magazine’s second item is a report on Angola’s third general election, which saw an emphatic victory for the incumbent MPLA party.

Our third major story offers a panorama of Kwanza Norte province.

Now a comfortable drive from Luanda, the province has a wide range of mineral and agricultural riches that are ripe for profitable exploitation. We also show why investors should look seriously at the opportunities on offer in this naturally wealthy region.

Luanda’s makeover of its magnificent bay area is the subject of our fourth feature. President José Eduardo dos Santos aims to make the capital one of the world’s most beautiful cities, and this high-impact project is the most visible face of this ambition.

Our final feature looks at the stunning and exciting work of some of the country’s painters, whose creations are gaining a wider international public following.

John Kolodziejski Editor

2 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

4

ANGOLA NEWS BRIEFING

6 ANGOLA GOES FOR GREEN GROWTH

Angola presented a conservation project and a

Javier Soriano/AFP/GettyImages

Contents major contribution to controlling climate change at its stand at the 2012 World Expo

ELECTIONS

MPLA wins power for a third time

20

THE KWANZA BONANZA

Jeon Heon-Kyun/epa/Corbis

16

4

Kwanza Norte province not only is a highland tourist refuge but has extensive economic

BAY WATCH: THE BIG MAKEOVER

The Luanda Bay rebuilding project is well on the way to completion, and the benefits are set to follow

36

6 Peter Moeller

30

SOUL SEARCH: ANGOLA’S PAINTERS

Angola’s artists, especially its young painters, are

20

42

SONANGOL NEWS BRIEFING

Wheel success; new LNG trader; Suezmax

Bruno Rodrigues

gaining international respect for their creativity

tanker launched; Kizomba payday; young writers’ contest; Sonangol Filda prize; boost for industry; rising oil ouput

48

ANGOLA ON TARGET FOR OIL SUPREMACY

30 Paulo Kussy

Jeon Heon-Kyun/epa/Corbis

opportunities, which are about to be tapped

Angola’s oil story is one of marked expansion.

New discoveries indicate that it is set to become Sub-Saharan Africa’s leading producer

36 SEPTEMBER 2012 3

Angola news briefing

Women’s role boosted ■ A workforce where women play a key

of Total E&P and Andreia Campozana of Schlumberger, also spoke about their bright careers. The seminar was honoured by the presence of Maria Cândida Teixeira, Minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology, who recounted the course of her career from assistant university professor to minister.

Members of the audience, which included many women from various ministries, government institutions and universities plus teachers and students, took part in activities where they were able to discuss the challenges and difficulties facing professional women in their roles as mothers and heads of families.

Angolan GDP growth ■ Angola’s economic growth is forecast to grow

at a robust rate of 6.8% in 2012, according to the International Monetary Fund. Other predictions are even more positive with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) forecasting a GDP rise for the country’s economy this year at 8%. Meanwhile, a Reuters’ survey in July predicted a huge 9.1% increase. Angola’s foreign currency reserves stood at $33 billion in May, thanks to greater oil output and higher oil prices, the EIU said.

4 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Javier Soriano/AFP/GettyImages

Courtesy Schlumberger

role is a vital ingredient to a successful and innovative company – that was the conclusion of an event organised by leading oilfield services supplier Schlumberger at Luanda’s Skyna Hotel in August. The aim of the seminar, entitled ‘Schlumberger Women and Industry’, was to publicise and motivate women around the world to do engineering and geoscience courses.

During the event guest speakers shared their experiences. They included engineer Albina Assis Africano, head of Angola’s Expo Commission, and Rachel Paget, Schlumberger Angola’s personnel director.

Two young Angolan engineers, Arlet Igbal

Olympics roundup ■ Angola’s 34-strong team had

mixed fortunes in the London Olympic Games (July 27 to August 12). Angolans proudly took part in the swimming, handball, athletics, boxing, judo, basketball and canoeing events.

The best performances came from canoeists Fortunato Pacavira and Nelson Henriques who reached the semi-finals in the 1000 metre singles and pairs, as well as in the 200m singles. Athlete Felismina Cavela bettered her own record in the 800m race but failed to reach the finals. Judo hopeful Antónia de Fátima ‘Faia’ was defeated at the quarter-final phase.

Angola’s women basketball team, who won the African Championship, came across strong opponents including the United States, in their preliminary round and made no further progress in the competition. The handball team fared slightly better and had the satisfaction of beating the Great Britain team in their single victory.

Promising swimmers Mariana Henriques (50m) and Pedro Pinotes (200m) were eliminated in the preliminary round.

Angola’s handball player, Isabel Guialo

Angola news briefing

Railway reopens

Laúca Dam ■ Angola has signalled the start of work

iStockphoto

Dalian Locomotive

on its largest power dam. The Laúca Dam will generate 2,067 megawatts, nearly fourtimes the capacity of Angola’s largest dam at Capanda. The $3.7 billion project will be located on the River Kwanza just east of Dondo. Manuel Vicente, Minister of State for Economic Co-ordination, symbolically laid the foundation stone in June. Start up of the first turbines is scheduled for July 2016.

The project will employ some 5,000 workers and and will be led by Brazilian firm Grupo Odebrecht.

■ The 970km Moçâmedes railway, Caminho de Ferro de Moçâmedes (CFM),

linking the port of Namibe to Lubango and Menongue, was officially reopened in August after a major rebuild. The line crosses the Namibe Desert before scaling the steep plateau to Lubango and beyond.

Initially the new railway will carry passengers, but freight in the form of iron ore from the Jamba-Kassinga region, 300km east of Lubango, will provide the main economic support for the line. When previously worked, these deposits were earning $500 million a year at current prices.

Angola is also taking delivery of a batch of 15 new locomotives for use on the CFM and Angola’s other two rebuilt railroads, Benguela and Luanda. The first five of the consignment were dispatched from China’s Dalian locomotive works in July.

FIGURED OUT

700

exhibitors at Luanda’s Filda international fair in July

Angola in numbers

131.5 carats

The size of a giant diamond discovered in Angola

2,067

$3.7 billion

$33 billion

1.8 million

megawatts generated by Laúca Dam

Angola’s foreign reserves in May

investment in new Laúca Dam

barrels a day oil exports in August

SEPTEMBER 2012 5

EVENT

ANGOLA GOES FOR GREEN GROWTH AT

EXPO Angola grasped the opportunity offered by the 2012 World Expo to send out a clear message that rapid economic development can go hand-in-hand with the preservation of the country’s natural resources.

Universo joined the visiting crowds k

6 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Ji Xinlong/Xinhua Press/Corbis

SEPTEMBER 2012 7

2012 Expo observation tower, Yeosu

U

nder the hot sun of a July day at the Yeosu Expo in South Korea, hundreds of visitors queued patiently for a glimpse of Angola – a country that most Koreans would admit to knowing little about, but one set to become an increasingly important partner in the years ahead.

Coming two years after Angola’s show at the 2010 Shanghai Expo, the country’s pavilion and events in Yeosu were intended to give a comprehensive picture of one of Africa’s emerging powers: its culture, its history and its plans for the future. Even before its ‘national day’ exhibition on July 20, the floors of Angola’s pavilion were well-trodden; more than 110,000 people

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Jung Yeon-/AFP/GettyImages

Jung Yeon-/AFP/GettyImages

EVENT

Yeosu’s impressive ocean gallery

visited in the first month after South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak opened the Expo on May 12.

Angola was one of more than 100 countries that showcased themselves in Yeosu, a picturesque seaside resort with a population of about 300,000 in the far south of the Korean peninsula, surrounded by rolling green hills. The South Korean organisers, keen to show their concern for the environment, gave the event the theme ‘The Living Ocean and Coast’, with a focus on the preservation of marine life.

The event cost an estimated $2 billion to stage and included the construction of South Korea’s biggest aquarium – featuring three beluga whales, among other

attractions – and a giant Ferris wheel, the centrepiece of a nightly laser show.

The two months of displays in Yeosu were the conclusion of two years of preparation for the Angolan Expo production team, led by Albina Assis Africano, the general commissioner for Angola at the event. Speaking at Yeosu’s Ocean Hotel after a long day of events at Gabon’s national day at the Expo, she permitted herself a smile as she recounted her painstaking preparations.

A former petroleum minister, Assis Africano also oversaw Angola’s display at the Shanghai event, and she started preparing for the Yeosu Expo back in April 2010. “It has been lots of work – it’s not

Simon Mundy

EVENT

YNA/epa/Corbis

South Koreans at Angola’s stand

Commitment to preserve The main message that Angola was seeking to convey to the outside world, she added, was its focus on sustainable development: “That is our commitment… to preserve our biodiversity, to preserve the family environment and to develop the country with a balance between growth and preservation.”

The team sought to convey this message with a pavilion that featured a wide range of aspects of the country, but with a particular focus on the conservation of Angola’s seas and coastline.

The rapid development of the country’s offshore oil industry has been the main driver of its recent economic advancement – gross domestic product growth was in double digits for most of the past decade, and after a few years of more moderate expansion is expected to be around 8 per cent in 2012. The discovery of a block with up to 1.5 billion barrels of crude oil in Angola’s Kwanza basin has fuelled hopes that the country could double its oil production to about 3.5 million barrels a day.

But offshore oil production can raise

environmental concerns. The disaster at BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico attracted global publicity as oil devastated the surrounding ocean and the Louisiana coastline. The development of Nigeria’s Niger Delta has long been a controversial topic, with residents complaining of damage to their health and environment.

“The extinction of marine and other species is often linked to the degradation and disappearance of their natural habitat resulting from poor environmental policies and questionable human behaviour,” said commissioner Assis Africano in her official message.

Angola’s focus here in Yeosu, therefore, was to reassure the world that the development of its oil resources will not be at the cost of its natural beauty and environment. The show began even as visitors were queuing outside the pavilion, with a colourful exterior designed to inform guests and whet their appetite for the exciting displays inside.

At the top edge of the facade was an artistic representation of the sea journey from Yeosu to Luanda; below that were several screens showing clips conveying the history and culture of Angola. A graphic montage portrayed Angola’s historic bond with the ocean.

“We had to show above all the

The endangered West African manatee

iStockphoto

very easy, taking this kind of project from the initial theme conception to execution,” she said.

SEPTEMBER 2012 9

Marcelina Vahakeni, Miss Angola 2012 (right)

protection of the ocean, even with the extraction of petroleum,” said António Gameiro, chairman of the Angolan Architects’ Order, who designed the pavilion and made four visits to South Korea as part of his preparations.

Once inside the pavilion, visitors were greeted with a data wall, providing basic information about Angola alongside a welcoming message from President José Eduardo dos Santos. Then they passed into the pre-show area, described by the organisers as “an intimate space of sound, light and reflection on the sea”.

This room contained screens showing several documentaries, with a variety of Angolans – including fishermen, engineers and artists – talking about their personal relationship with the sea.

A larger-scale eight-minute audiovisual show followed in the next room. Here visitors sat on tiered rows of seating in front of a screen that curved and merged with the floor – allowing scenes of the sea that gave the illusion of waves washing almost up to the audience’s feet.

With rousing Angolan music throughout, the audience was given a sweeping tour of Africa’s fifth-largest country.

There was footage of Luanda, the

10 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

rapidly-developing capital city, and of the fast-paced growth of the country’s oil infrastructure. But this was interspersed with the natural beauty whose preservation the government sees as an equal priority alongside the oil industry – fish and other aquatic life, beaches, forests and rolling mountains.

Next, walking into the futuristic interactive hall, visitors were invited to use a collection of touch screens giving details of Angola’s work to protect its environment. One of the subjects covered was the protection of the West African manatee, which is seriously threatened by poaching and the increased use of hydroelectric power in the rivers that constitute its natural habitat.

There was a lighter theme in the final room – with a music stage and art gallery where singers, dancers and other artists entertained guests with a sample of Angola’s rich creative traditions. Oneoff events at the pavilion included shows and tastings of the country’s coffee and beer; displays of its art and fashion; and a special appearance by Miss Angola 2012, Marcelina Vahakeni. There was also a restaurant and bar, where visitors could enjoy Angolan food and drink.

Simon Mundy

Simon Mundy

EVENT

Showcasing Angola’s dynamic economy Why did Angola put so much hard work into this event? Dr Albino Malungo, Angola’s ambassador in Seoul, told Universo that this was a unique opportunity to further the mutual understanding between Angola and South Korea, and to “show that Angola has a very dynamic economy”.

The relationship could become even closer than the link with China, Angola’s biggest trading partner, he said, because of the “similarities” between the two countries. A few decades ago, South Korea was at a similar stage of development to that of Angola today, and the republic could learn lessons from the Asian country’s success. “Korea has been in a civil war, it has been a colony… in its democracy, South Korea can be a very good example for Angola – and also in its successes in education and IT,” he said.

South Korea is widely cited as a model for developing countries. While 79 per cent of the workforce in 1961 was employed in the primary sector, rapid industrial expansion meant that 70 per cent were employed in the secondary and tertiary sectors by 1988. The same period

EVENT

Albina Assis Africano, Angola’s Expo team leader

saw relentless economic advancement.

Between 1962 and 1989, real growth in gross domestic product averaged more than 8 per cent per year, with nominal GDP per capita increasing from $104 in 1962 to $5,400 in 1989. Last year it reached nearly $23,000.

Dr Malungo also saw potential for a strengthening of trade ties between the two countries. Angola is putting together a major project in liquefied natural gas (LNG), an increasingly important form of energy that offers lower carbon emissions than oil and coal.

A cutting-edge LNG plant at Soyo, a hydrocarbon-rich area in the far north of Angola, built at a cost of $10 billion, will have a capacity of 5.2 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas per year. Chevron and Sonangol are the co-leaders of the project, named Angola LNG, with stakes of 36.4 per cent and 22.8 per cent respectively. BP, Eni and Total have also invested in it.

Once the project is fully up and running, “we are ready to sell LNG to South Korea”, said the ambassador. His hopes have also been raised by South Korea’s recent strengthening of its ties with other trading partners. The country signed a free trade agreement with the United States last

year, and followed that with a pact with the European Union this year, significantly opening the scope for trade with those areas. “Why not think about a pact with Angola too?” Dr Malungo suggested. “We can talk about an FTA [free trade area] – if that were passed, we could go into very deep co-operation,” he said.

There have already been encouraging signs of the strengthening of this relationship. South Korea is Angola’s tenth-biggest trading partner, but still accounts for a small proportion of the African country’s trade. Last year, Angola imported €$131 million of goods from South Korea and exported €$78.3 million – just 1.1 per cent and 0.2 per cent of their respective trade totals.

Georges Chikoti, Angola’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, visited Seoul in May to discuss the possibility of increased trade with his South Korean counterpart Kim Sung-hwan. Chikoti announced that South Korea would provide science and engineering scholarships to Angolan students, and that some Angolan companies would attend an industrial fair in Seoul in October. There should also be more scope for trade in heavy goods and infrastructure – Sonangol already sources

some of its oil and LNG tankers from South Korea.

During his visit to South Korea, Minister Chikoti underscored the importance of Angola’s participation in events such as Expo 2012. “We have to show our people, their activities and what’s relevant for the world to know. I think our participation in universal exhibitions is a good way to promote the country because there is a very large international community, eager to know Angola, where it is located and what is its level of growth,” he said.

Chikoti later praised the Angola pavilion for demonstrating the country’s ability to pursue oil development without damaging the environment.

Angola-Korea trade already significant At the opening ceremony of Angola’s national day in July, the Minister for Geology, Mines and Industry, Joaquim Duarte da Costa David, saluted the “organisational capacity and determination” of the South Korean organisers of Expo 2012, as well as “the success accomplished in a matter of just a few decades with an accelerated rate of sustainable economic growth, which has

SEPTEMBER 2012 11

EVENT

Simon Mundy

Singers, dancers and other artists entertained guests with a sample of Angola’s rich creative traditions

Angolan singer Gisela Silva 12 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Simon Mundy

EVENT

elevated its condition to the ranks of a developed country”.

The minister added that Angola “has never walked alone on its path for peace, democracy, economic growth and prosperity” – and he hailed his host country as an important partner, noting that “the co-operation between Angola and Korea is already economically significant”.

“We have not forgotten that even in the distant days of the past during a time of military conflict, Angola’s waters had petroleum production platforms that were built in Korea in addition to Korean-made ships to transport crude oil.”

He also noted more recent support from the South Korean export credit agency, which had supported projects including an irrigation system in the province of Kwanza Sul and a forthcoming polytechnic centre providing training in

Happy South Koreans cheer Angola’s presence at Yeosu

mechanics, electricity, and automation and information technology.

Joining Industry Minister David on his visit were other government officials including Maria Idalina de Oliveira Valente, Minister of Commerce; Maria Cândida Teixeira, Minister of Science and Technology; Luís Filipe da Silva, Secretary of State for Water; and Victória de Barros Neto, Secretary of State for Fisheries.

There were also diplomats including João Miguel Vahekeni, Angola’s ambassador to Japan; Tony da Costa Fernandes, the ambassador to Egypt; and Flávio Saraiva de Carvalho Fonseca, the ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.

The Angolan delegation received a warm welcome from Lee Joon-hee, commissioner general of Expo 2012. Lee praised the Angolan government for its active participation in the international

movement to protect natural ecosystems, saying: “As a country with a capacity to produce 2 million barrels of oil per day, Angola is committed to sustainable development that balances the respect for biodiversity and conservation with the development of natural resources.” This meant the government’s priorities were “closely related” to the themes of the Yeosu Expo, with its focus on the environment.

He also noted that this year marked the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Angola, adding: “In the past 20 years, our co-operative relations have been developing steadily in the fields of politics, economy, culture and others. Recent high-level visits have been encouraging, along with increased economic co-operation. Angola has the potential for unlimited economic growth, and Korea’s experience in economic

SEPTEMBER 2012 13

Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/GettyImages

EVENT

development gives much potential for mutually beneficial bilateral co-operation.”

Angola Day show After a break for lunch, the Angolan delegation and hundreds of curious Expo visitors moved over to the central Expo Hall for a large-scale entertainment show. The hall was overflowing with Angolan flags and coloured scarves wielded by visitors who had been given them on their arrival.

The event kicked off with a fashion show by Mia Mendes, the famous Angolan fashion designer. Nádia Alfredo, one of the models in the show, said that taking part in the Expo had been an unforgettable event.

Nádia, a law student from Lubango, said that while she found the South Korean people “reserved”, the “marvellous welcome” she had received made her

14 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

sure that there could be “a very good relationship between the two countries”.

Esmeralda Kissanga and Semba Muxima launched the musical proceedings before a mesmerising dance routine from traditional ballet group Kilandukilu.

Next, the crowd was entertained by some of the biggest names in Angolan music: Bruna Tatiana, Gabriel Tchiema and Lina Alexandre all played joyously to an enthusiastic audience.

Outside the hall, South Korean visitors happily posed for photographs waving their newly-acquired Angolan flags, having apparently thoroughly enjoyed what would have been for most their first encounter with Angolan culture.

The day concluded with a banquet at the prestigious Ocean Hotel, a short drive from the Expo complex. Before guests

dined on an appetising spread of both Angolan and Korean cuisine, Industry Minister David made some concluding remarks. “Korea is a very special country for Angola – we admire the success of the economy and the prosperity the government was able to put forward in three or four decades,” he said. “I was surprised, when I first came here, to hear that 30 or 40 years ago Korea was at a very similar stage of development to Angola.

“People from Asia generally know very little about Angola and about Africa.

For that reason, it’s very important to expose our arts and culture to Asian people, to the people of the world, and the people of Korea.”

The display in Yeosu this year, it seems safe to say, will prove an important step in that mission. p

Jeon Heon-Kyun/epa/Corbis

EVENT

Simon Mundy

Simon Mundy

Traditional dance group Kina Ku Moxi

SEPTEMBER 2012 15

Stephane De Sakutin/AFP/

ELECTIONS

ELECTIONS MPLA’s third election triumph

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Stephane De Sakutin/AFP/GettyImages

ELECTIONS

Angola’s MPLA party recorded another resounding victory at the polls on August 31. The ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola party won its third general election in a row since the country gained independence in 1975.

The MPLA took 71.8 per cent of the vote in a widely-expected landslide win. The MPLA said the voting figures showed the party continued to hold widespread public support. k

J

ust over 9.7 million voters were registered in 2012 for the election of 220 deputies to the National Assembly for a five-year term. The party with the largest number of votes then elects the president. Incumbent President José Eduardo dos Santos, leading the MPLA list of candidates, therefore continues in his position as head of state.

Nine parties took part in the election.

The main opposition party UNITA (the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) polled 18.7 per cent of the vote.

CASA-CE (the Broad Convergence for the Salvation of Angola – Election Coalition), a splinter group from UNITA, gained 6 per cent of all votes cast. None of the other six parties mustered more than 2 per cent each.

Election day passed peacefully and without incident, according to state and independent observers of the process.

Turnout was a healthy 62.8 per cent of the electorate. This compares with 57.4 per cent in the United States presidential election in 2008 and 65.1 per cent in the United Kingdom in the 2010 parliamentary election.

The MPLA’s success was attributed to the economy’s high rates of growth since the establishment of peace in 2002. Gross domestic product (GDP) leapt 17 per cent a year in the period from 2002 to 2008.

Despite a sharp dip from 2009 to 2011 during the world monetary crisis, the party sees GDP for 2012 back on an upward path and growing by 8.9 per cent, with inflation expected to fall to 10 per cent.

The ruling party has spent widely throughout the country in renewing road, rail and airport infrastructure as well as on energy, education and health.

MPLA spokesman Rui Falcão told the Reuters news agency that the results showed the MPLA “continues to be the party of the people” and that the majority vote will allow the country to keep growing in a stable climate.

President dos Santos has promised to continue to deliver economic growth and aims to make the country’s distribution of wealth more equitable.

In the run-up to the election, the MPLA said that more than 350,000 new homes were under construction and these would house 2 million people. The party also pointed to the successful completion in 2012 of Angola’s three east-west railroads.

Other gains included the modernisation of Angola’s airports and the construction of a new Luanda airport, begun in 2008, which will handle 15 million passengers a year.

From 2002 to 2012, the Angolan government rebuilt 12,000km of highways,

Stephane De Sakutin/AFP/GettyImages

Pedro Pires, former president of Cape Verde, headed the African Union electoral observation mission in Angola

CNE The National Electoral Commission (CNE), the independent electoral watchdog charged with overseeing the voting process, said voting was free and fair. CNE employees conducted a long campaign ahead of the polls to explain the democratic process to the electorate and to ensure that people registered to vote.

SEPTEMBER 2012 17

Stephane De Sakutin/AFP/GettyImages

ELECTIONS

with the result that 80 per cent of the provincial capitals are now connected to each other.

Another election-winning gain during the MPLA’s stewardship of the country has been the extension of drinking water supplies to 60 per cent of the rural population.

As far as education is concerned, the MPLA says it has more than doubled the number of students in pre-university education from 2.6 million in 2002 to 6.7 million last year, helped by $480 million of investment since 2009. University student numbers have also experienced massive

growth, increasing almost three-fold to 280,000 since 2002.

Looking ahead For the period from 2012 to 2017, the MPLA has pledged to guarantee annual average GDP growth of 7 per cent with non-oil GDP rising at not less than 8 per cent. At the same time, the MPLA aims to keep unemployment below 20 per cent.

Rural development is a high priority and cereal output is targeted at 2.5 million tonnes a year, domestic poultry supply at 60 per cent and beef at 50 per cent of the country’s needs.

Election Results

CASA-CE 6.00%

Name

UNITA 18.66%

MPLA 71.84%

Number of votes

Percentage of votes

MPLA

4,135,503

71.84%

UNITA

1,074,565

18.66%

345,589

6.00%

PRS

98,233

1.70%

FNLA

65,163

1.13%

ND

13,337

0.23%

PAPOD

8,710

0.15%

FUMA

8,260

0.14%

CPO

6,644

0.11%

CASA-CE

18 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Angola’s industrial production is also on track for faster growth, with the benchmark set to increase by 10 per cent per year aimed at replacing imports.

Regarding oil, the MPLA wants to ensure self-sufficiency in refined oil products with the construction of refineries at Lobito and Soyo.

President dos Santos said he was “happy to have been chosen by the Angolan people” and promised “to do everything he can and use all his efforts” to ensure the execution of his party’s electoral programme to improve Angola’s quality of life. p

ELECTIONS

Angola’s leading daily announces MPLA win SEPTEMBER 2012 19

Stephane De Sakutin/AFP/GettyImages

President dos Santos pledges to improve Angolans quality of life

PROVINCE

20 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

THE

KWANZA

BONANZA

Sunset over Camabatela

Peter Moeller

Thanks to extensive government investment in transport and energy infrastructure, Kwanza Norte province is on the cusp of fulfilling its hugely diverse economic potential while also opening the door to its tourist attractions. Universo surveys the scene

SEPTEMBER 2012 21

PROVINCE

R

eaching Kwanza Norte has never been more comfortable. New highways, completely rebuilt rail links and an upgraded airport now bring visitors in at high speed.

A mosaic of landscapes, climates and natural assets means this relatively small province on the doorstep of heavilypopulated Luanda is able and ready to exploit a widening range of market opportunities.

The province has been one of the earliest and greatest beneficiaries of Angola’s border-to-border highway reconstruction project, which has made a step change in the country’s flows of goods, services and travellers.

Over the past decade around 7,000km of major roads along with hundreds of new bridges have been rebuilt in Angola.

Travel time over the 248km separating Luanda from Kwanza Norte’s provincial capital N’dalatando has been halved to around two and a half hours, so round trips can now easily be made in a day.

New energy Kwanza Norte consists of varied terrain from lowland marshy wetlands to upland savannah and hilly, forested areas. Highlands make up two-thirds of this relatively small province’s territory with the Kwanza, Angola’s largest river, marking its southern boundary. Here, the section where the Kwanza tumbles down the highland plateau to the plain below is increasingly being harnessed to generate electricity.

Kwanza Norte already has one functioning power dam at Cambambe near Dondo.

The Cambambe Dam currently generates 180 megawatts and is being upgraded to produce 960MW in 2014. Cambambe will eventually be joined by

the recently announced Laúca Dam project. Both dams are in a natural gorge and others are planned in the same sparsely populated length of river.

The ambitiously-scaled Laúca Dam project began in June when Manuel Vicente, Minister of State for Economic Coordination, symbolically laid the first stone. Budgeted at $3.7 billion, it will be Angola’s most expensive single infrastructure item following the recent completion of the $10 billion liquefied natural gas plant at Soyo.

Laúca’s output of 2,067MW will be nearly four-times that of Angola’s largest dam, Capanda (520MW), just 37km up the Kwanza in Malange province.

Two bypass tunnels will be excavated over the next 20 months and the first turbines will spin by July 2016. The project, contracted to Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht, which built the Capanda Dam, will employ about 5,000 workers.

Kwanza Norte’s location on the middle reaches of the River Kwanza, close to these new power sources, and the fact that it has one of Angola’s most important highway junctions, are key factors for attracting industry to the province.

Industrial growth Kwanza Norte is the historic birthplace of Angola’s modern manufacturing industry, says Professor David Birmingham, Chair in African History at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK, writing in his book Trade and Conflict in Angola: The Mbundo and their Neighbours under the Influence of the Portuguese 1483-1790.

The Portuguese built a foundry and iron-working factory based on local ores at Nova Oeiras, near Cassoalala, in the 1760s. The aim was to export iron to Portugal while also manufacturing tools and weaponry, including cannon.

The colonists noted, with some surprise, that indigenous

Kwanza Norte is the historic birthplace of Angola’s modern industry

Bridge over the Kwanza near Cambambe

Peter Moeller

Cambambe Dam

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artisan metalworking in the area was already well-established in making weaponry and farm implements. Indeed, iron-smelting and forging had long occupied a special place in Angola, and in Kwanza Norte in particular.

Metal skills were characteristic of the Bantu people who migrated into and through Angola. Blacksmiths once enjoyed great prestige and were believed to have mystical powers.

Ngola, according to oral tradition, was the blacksmith hunterking who gave his name to Angola. Ngola and his people dominated the territory between Angola’s Kwanza and Dande rivers where they established a Kimbundu monarchy. Kimbundu is a language largely spoken in northern Angola, including the belt ranging from Luanda to Malange.

Evidence of the reputation of indigenous metalworking remains in the neighbouring language, Umbundu, which has a traditional saying: ‘The hoes of the men of Ngola are recognised by their quality.’

Francisco de Sousa Coutinho, the Portuguese governor of Angola behind the foundry scheme, reluctantly, but honestly, also recognised these metalworking skills. “It pains us to see that in this centre of barbarity and ignorance, these same barbarians exceed us in knowledge [of metals]…,” he said.

To make the best use of these skills, colonial labour recruited locally was paid for rather than extracted by slavery. Sadly, the attempt to build an industrial-scale foundry failed after a few years of operations. Four iron masters from the Basque Country, specially contracted to set up and run the project, died from disease shortly after arriving in Angola.

The operation was plagued with staffing difficulties, mainly due to disease, and interrupted by floods, hundreds of Africans and 77 Europeans died during the short building and operating period of the foundry between 1766 and 1772. The subsequent Portuguese governor abandoned the foundry on the grounds that it was not profitable. Today its remains are a tourist site.

Peter Moeller

Queen Ginga statue N’dalatando

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Peter Moeller

Cambatelas imposingly bright church

Coffee riches

Coffee, cotton and fruit are now experiencing a revival

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Peter Moeller

Dondo guesthouse

River Lucala near Massangano

Signs of rebirth There are, however, advanced plans to resume mining of Kwanza Norte’s iron ore deposits. The project is a private-public partnership involving state mining company Empresa Nacional de Ferros de Angola (Ferrangol) and the private DT and Genius Mineira consortiums.

Reserves estimated at 600 million tonnes are located at Dangeia-Menha, 29km northeast of Dondo. Detailed prospecting as part of the wider Kassala-Kitungo iron ore and manganese project officially began in January 2012. The mining area includes historic Nova Oeiras as well as Cazengo, Kitungo and Cambambe.

So, Kwanza Norte’s ore could spark a new iron industry once cheap, abundant hydropower is added to these assets, or it could be transported to the coast for export via a branch of the LuandaMalange railway.

Cash crops Apart from oil and diamonds, Angola’s major export earners for the past four decades, the country previously had substantial exports of cash crops which fed food-processing and textile industries. Much reduced in scale since independence, coffee, cotton, fruit and other plantation crops are now experiencing an accelerating revival in Kwanza Norte.

The area around Dondo already hosts an industrial complex at Cambambe, mainly occupied with food-processing and brewing.

It is home to the famous Eka beer beloved by discerning drinkers.

The nearby Vinelo factory cans fruit and also makes fruit juice and alcoholic drinks from pineapples and other tropical fruits.

The government is also making efforts to develop Kwanza Norte’s farming, create jobs and achieve food self-sufficiency. It has underlined the seriousness of its intent by contracting a range

Peter Moeller

PROVINCE

of companies from Spain, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and other countries with recognised specialist expertise to help speedily rebuild farming and related industrial projects.

An agricultural project nearing completion is the Mucoso irrigated perimeter, also near Cambambe. Mucoso once exported to European markets but output slumped in the 1990s and much of its area reverted to subsistence farming.

Spanish company Incatema Consulting has upgraded Mucoso with the installation of a modern drip-feed watering system composed of 2 million metres of pipes. As a result, some 500 hectares will benefit from mechanised farming. Another 500 hectares will be subdivided into 166 smaller holdings, which will produce pineapples, mangoes, citrus fruits and vegetables.

Apart from improving the local diet, Mucoso will also provide raw materials for food-processing industries at Cambambe.

Irrigated fruit growing is generally labour intensive and thus a good source of employment. The hope is to eventually resume Angola’s once buoyant agricultural export trade.

Another cash crop being resurrected is cotton. Kwanza Norte has long been a cotton producer, but plans are afoot to boost local cotton production by irrigation. The long-neglected Satec textile mill at Cambambe, now known as Comandante Bula, is on its way to resuming production to absorb the cotton crop after a reequipment project led by Japan’s Marubeni.

Coffee also has a long history in Kwanza Norte, thanks to the shade provided by its highland forests. Coffee output is slowly reviving as neglected plantations are being removed and replaced. Bushes should ideally be replaced every seven years but Angola has many trees over 30 years old.

Kwanza Norte’s small farmers produced 1,000 tonnes of coffee in 2011, says the Angolan National Coffee Institute (Inca). This

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Mark Clydesdale BZO

Kwanza Norte Data

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Mark Clydesdale BZO

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Kwanza Norte major farm products Coffee Cotton Bananas

Dairy Poultry Sisal

Beans Guava Papaya

Timber Cereals Beef

Palm oil Pineapples Mangoes

Cassava Rice Citrus fruits

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Kwanza Norte minerals

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Textiles Beer Chicken processing Eggs Tobacco Meat processing Tourism

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Kwanza Norte industry

Iron Manganese Quartz Diamonds Copper SEPTEMBER 2012 27

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Peter Moeller

Massangano: an ancient fort

was picked in the areas around Ambaca, Golungo Alto, Kiculungo and Bolongongo.

Angola signed a co-operation agreement in July with Vietnam’s Thai Hoa Group, the country’s top arabica producer and trader, and with Brazilian consultants to refurbish coffee plantations. The plan is to plant 100,000 hectares over the next decade. Vietnam is the world’s second-largest coffee producer after Brazil.

Before independence, the Camabatela area in the northeast of the province was a major cattle-rearing area, where around 100,000 head of cattle roamed its long, green, grassy, upland savannah pastures. This lush area once provided 60 per cent of northern Angola’s beef supply.

Cattle numbers today are around 7,000 but Angola’s Ministry for Agriculture has been bringing more cattle into this region. Local breeders receive the cattle on the condition that they return a similar number several years later. The government is now providing veterinary support services and an abattoir will be opened this year.

Another government-led agribusiness project in Kwanza Norte aims to replace more expensive meat products while also cutting imports of poultry products. This is the role for the recently established poultry and egg enterprise at Lucala, 34km from N’dalatando.

Lucala benefits from its location on the railway and main highways as well as having good access to water and electricity supplies. This $42-million South Korean-financed project produces 2 million eggs a month and hatches 150,000 chicks a week for distribution to small farmers in the region. The project will also produce chicken feed and a factory capable of processing 32,000 chickens a day. The intention is also to reduce rural poverty and exodus while improving the local diet.

Historic tourism Kwanza Norte’s tourist attractions make up the lion’s share of a wider, regional initiative taking in neighbouring provinces Bengo and Malange in the ‘Kwanza Corridor’ project.

One attraction is the impressive, cliff-top Massangano fortress, a Unesco World Heritage site, 20km west of Dondo.

Established back in 1583, Massangano marks the end of the 200km navigable section of the Kwanza from the coast before it is blocked by a series of rapids.

It was famously a Portuguese bastion during Angola’s colonial occupation and also in the global colonial war with the Dutch which stretched from Brazil to the Far East in the 17th century.

Massangano is also closely associated with Angolan warrior queen Ginga (c1587-1663), a charismatic and dignified figure

The wetland areas that surround the lakes are attractive sites for birdwatching and sports fishing

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Peter Moeller

Rebuilt church, Kwanza Norte

who was influential and respected by her own people and the colonialists alike. A statue of Ginga stands in the central square of the refreshingly cool upland provincial capital N’dalatando. Her grave is in Kwanza Norte at Matamba near Samba Caju.

A non-governmental voluntary organisation, Anamassango (Friends of Massangano), has been created to preserve historic records, improve the site’s image, attract tourism and boost the local economy. The hope is that roads will be rebuilt and these will help to develop local farming and fishing.

Green tourism

Peter Moeller

Kwanza Norte’s natural attractions include lakes, rivers, cool highland forests and savannah grasslands – all excellent ingredients for the successful development of ecotourism.

One of Kwanza Norte’s tropical allures is the Kilombo Botanical Gardens (Centro Horto-Botânico de Kilombo) a few kilometres outside N’dalatando. The garden’s thick-foliaged, sun-protected walkways are becoming increasingly popular with visitors now N’dalatando downtown willing to take the much-improved roads out of busy Luanda.

The gardens were once a favourite retreat of Angola’s first president Agostinho Neto, who spent his vacations here. The park boasts a wide range of tropical flowers, plants and trees and a Chinese-style bridge which spans the Muembege, a river with a spectacular

110-metre-high waterfall further upstream, which is set to become a popular tourist site once again.

Although the gardens have suffered some neglect, their charm remains and efforts to restore them to their former magnificence and revive their role as an educational and scientific-research asset are underway. A voluntary group has ‘adopted’ the botanical centre and is involved in renovating and reinvigorating the gardens to the most of their tourism and educational potential.

In the area around Massangano, a string of fish-rich lakes sustain large colonies of artisan fishermen. The largest lake is Negolome. The wetland areas that surround the lakes are attractive sites for birdwatching and for sports fishing.

Kwanza Norte also offers leisure opportunities along its fine brown sand river beaches on the Kwanza, such as the one at Kiamafulo near Cambambe. The beach at Ndala Ngombe, an island in the Kwanza, has historical connections. Queen Ginga once took refuge there from Portuguese colonialists.

Kwanza Norte also has large forestry reserves at Golungo Alto which covers an area of 558 sq km and at Caculama with 800 sq km where there are plans to exploit the timber. These areas also offer ecotourism opportunities such as birdwatching.

A current bottleneck to the development of Kwanza Norte’s tourism is a shortage of accommodation, but there are half a dozen guest houses in operation and three new hotels are under construction.

Future outlook The future looks bright for Kwanza Norte and it will be literally brighter once the Laúca Dam adds its electricity to the region. “With the energy, the doors will be open for industry, be it processing or agro-industry, so that the country doesn’t remain only dependent on oil,” says provincial governor Henrique Júnior.

Jobs are already appearing in large numbers in Kwanza Norte. The first 1,500 local workers on the dam have already been contracted. Cambambe, a prime beneficiary of new energy investment, is Kwanza Norte’s main industrial pole and was Angola’s fourth-largest industrial concentration until 1980.

A revival appears to be underway. State news agency Angop says 79 new enterprises are being built there and more land is being set aside for other investors attracted to the province.

Kwanza Norte is clearly well-placed to take advantage of Angola’s quest for a more efficient and diversified economy. p

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INFRASTRUCTURE

BAY WATCH THE BIG MAKEOVER

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Bruno Rodrigues

Builders’ screens along Luanda’s main arteries are being removed to reveal new urban landscapes aimed at improving the quality of life for the five million-strong population. Universo looks at the jewel in the crown – the $135 million Luanda Bay Project – and other remodelling initiatives currently raising the sense of well-being for the city’s workers and leisure-time visitors k

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Brazuk Ltd

Roll out the red carpet

N

ew York, Hong Kong, Sydney and Lisbon all instantly conjure up a distinctive image; the waterfronts of major port cities around the world occupy a place in our memory even if we have yet to visit them.

Luanda’s seafront is not yet so globally well-known, but that may just about be ready to change.

Angolan civil engineer Bruno Rodrigues, working for construction firm Grupo Mota-Engil Angola, is justly proud of the large-scale enterprise he is overseeing.

The youthful Rodrigues is working on the Luanda Bay Project, the ambitious remodelling of the city’s most popular postcard image, the crescent-shaped waterfront where the terracotta-tiled Central Bank attracts the eye as it pans the rising skyline.

The project is dramatic in scale and covers the broad sweep of the bay. It involves several components aimed at solving some of the city’s problems.

The financial backer and co-ordinator of the project is Sociedade Baía de Luanda, a private Angolan company.

Luanda’s population has swollen over the past 20 years, but only in the last five years have there been significant moves to make the city more pedestrian-friendly and attractive.

The project’s most obvious attribute is the Avenida 4 de Fevereiro seafront road, better known as the Marginal, which has been widened to accommodate a generous six-lane highway. This will ease traffic flows from the port area to the Ilha, the long sandspit of beaches, bars and restaurants that gives natural protection to Luanda harbour from the South Atlantic.

The highway also provides a new cross-city route to take traffic around the foot of the old fortress of São Miguel, then in a southerly direction towards the new residential and business districts of Talatona.

Free-flow traffic The expectation is that the new road will eventually cut through the shantytown that separates it from the Samba Highway, the main coastal route south, taking the

Angop

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pressure off commuter and beach traffic.

The effect of the new route will be to attract free-flowing traffic away from the maze of streets in Luanda’s downtown where there have been chronic, time-wasting jams for over a decade.

Another consequence of the project will be greater construction along the main drag of the bay, where new offices and a convention centre are planned.

More building is also proposed for the Chicala district, centred on the spacious park surrounding the Agostinho Neto monument and mausoleum, behind the old fort. Here Angola’s new dome-capped congressional building is being erected alongside new hotels and offices.

A second, visually attractive aspect of the project has been the planting of trees and green areas along the seafront.

Well-watered new palms, bushes and lawns, offering shade for office workers to rest or take a lunchtime stroll, contrast sharply with what is generally a hazy grey, dusty city.

There is a walking, running and cycling track along the seafront painted in bright red, and play areas with swings and climbing frames for children in a number of parks.

The new facilities are easily accessible for motorists, who will be able to make use of the 3,000 new parking spaces. Smootherrunning traffic and greater capacity to accommodate Luanda’s rapidly-growing number of vehicle owners are evident even before the bay project reaches completion.

All lit up Luanda’s public lighting is largely noted for its absence, but the bay project with its battery of backup generators will ensure that the recreation, pedestrian and parking areas will be lit up in the evening, making it more attractive to strollers and people exercising.

Before the project’s construction, Luanda’s seafront sidewalk was a dark and forbidding area at night-time.

The parks and walkways are not yet open for pedestrian use, but if the example of other recently completed sidewalk projects in the city is any guide, then they will soon be flooded with joggers, walkers

President dos Santos opens Luanda’s new sea-front

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Project’s big numbers Cost: $135 million Parking: 3,000 spaces Drains: a water basin of 500 hectares Total area remodelled: 700,000 square metres and cyclists – especially in the cool of the evening.

The benefits of the $135 million Luanda Bay Project are not restricted to drivers and pedestrians. Infrastructure work includes the placing of utilities in new purposebuilt underground galleries. The ‘wet’ gallery, which holds pipelines for water and drainage, is painted bright red and its cover doubles as a running track, while a ‘dry gallery’ accommodates electrical and telecommunications cables. These galleries provide easy access for maintenance and streamline existing networks.

Another feature of the project is a radical move to remove wastewater and sewage from Luanda’s downtown area.

Until now, untreated wastewater, mixed with rainwater from the drains, flowed into Luanda Bay with negative consequences for the environment.

This mixture is now diverted away from the bay. Intercepted along the bay front, the polluted water is pumped into

a new 3km-long seafront pipeline which crosses the Ilha before depositing it into deep sea via a long outfall pipeline. The bay’s water quality is already improving and will get even better.

Flood defences The prospect of greater numbers of leisure fishermen along the seafront is on the cards too, as the fish are attracted by the cleaner waters.

Even before the project was implemented, the bay yielded large fish, but many people refused to eat them, put off by the opaque water’s pungent odour and pollution.

The project has also increased the flood defences of Luanda’s lower city by adding extra capacity to discharge any sudden amounts of heavy rainfall directly into the bay. Recycled wastewater is also stored and used to supply a nocturnal sprinkler system to keep the trees and lawns refreshed.

Additional items that may be added to the project at a later date are a number of piers containing restaurants and swimming pools.

Street credibility ‘Vias de Luanda’ is a project aimed at revamping many of the city’s major thoroughfares. The provincial government of Luanda is sponsoring this far-reaching urban deveopment programme and multinational construction firm Odebrecht is implementing it.

The Portuguese and Brazilian roots of much of the renewal work completed in Luanda are clearly notable in the decorative stone-paving that is characteristic of Lisbon, Copacabana and other areas of Rio de Janeiro’s seafront. This is especially the case on Avenida Murtala Mohamed, the road that runs along the spine of Luanda’s beachside Ilha peninsula.

The palm-lined road, kiosks, running track, paving and street lighting could

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Odebrecht

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easily be confused with Rio’s stylish upmarket Ipanema beachfront. A large part of Avenida Murtala Mohamed’s new face was also designed and is being built by Mota-Engil Angola.

Waterfronts are relatively easy places to provide attractive new pedestrian areas, as there is always the beautiful distraction of the blue South Atlantic. Much more challenging is to build robust, functional pedestrian facilities deep inside busy urban areas and undertake wholesale relocation of urban infrastructure such as utilities. The extensive Vias de Luanda project has managed this admirably.

The greatest urban improvement can

be seen in development of new pedestrian areas and pavements. Cars and trucks parked on pavements, uneven surfaces and unfilled potholes previously characterised the main thoroughfares benefiting from the project.

Bollards have been positioned to keep cars on the road, and new pavements laid.

Pedestrians are now better protected from road traffic and do not face an obstacle course as they go to work or to study. They can also use the paved walkways – some several hundred metres long – to exercise.

In all the thoroughfares where Odebrecht has implemented Vias de Luanda projects, their first action has

Waterfronts are relatively easy places to provide attractive new pedestrian areas as there is always the beautiful distraction

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of the blue South Atlantic been to remove debris and accumulated rubbish and give the area a thorough spring clean. As in Luanda Bay, electricity and telephone wires, water supply, sewerage and drainage pipelines have been organised and tidied into new channels, making them easily accessible for future repairs.

Vias de Luanda’s sustainability is assured by a continuous maintenance programme whereby vandalism and damage from motor accidents are repaired swiftly so that there is no sense of neglect which, experience has shown, can attract more vandals.

Regular waste collection is another key element for the project’s success. This is aided by the use of high-volume litter bins which are only partially visible at streetlevel, with a large removable subterranean container below. This ensures that bins rarely overflow or allow accumulation of surface waste to provide a haunt for insects and rodents.

The tidy appearance of the new thoroughfares is another plus and cause for a sense of public well-being.

Traffic is another major beneficiary.

Roads have been widened and illuminated and are better drained. Improved street infrastructure also adds value to the properties that it serves.

Visually Luanda is improving. More trees and green areas with the addition of benches, offer places to rest and contemplate the changes. Luanda is now a more pleasant, modern and comfortable city.

The habits of Luandans are changing to match their transformed environment.

There has been a noticeable increase in the public use of the new spaces. Parents are now taking their children to use the renovated playgrounds in the revamped neighbourhood squares; friends are meeting on the streets, and more people are taking physical exercise. This is especially the case on the Ilha jogging and cycle path, where the evening breeze makes it an exciting venue for Luandans to unwind after work.

The new street lighting, an integral part of Vias de Luanda, has also helped change the social habits of the populace.

People who were once reluctant to go out at night are now choosing to do so.

Commerce has also gained as street kiosks and shops become more accessible and draw more customers because people feel more comfortable as pedestrians.

Tourism is another winner. Hotels near a little-used beach have now become much busier as the beach has become a usable asset, even in the evening.

Luanda’s physical improvement has also raised the self-esteem and civic pride of its people and is a start to President José Eduardo dos Santos’ declared aim of making Luanda one of the world’s most beautiful cities.

Pedestrians, so long Luanda’s neglected majority, are now tentatively taking to the streets and in growing numbers as drivers leave their cars, tempted by the health benefits of a lesssedentary lifestyle.

Luanda and its citizens are both improving their looks and health.

The bay is once again becoming a civic asset. p

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ANGOLA's PAINTERS Angola’s most celebrated painters describe the country’s contemporary art scene, especially in Luanda, as an inspirational ‘explosion’.

Universo admires the view k

SEPTEMBER 2012 37

Miguel Costa

CULTURE

“L

uanda is like a big mouth that swallows everything.

As a friend of mine said, It’s where the telephone rings.” The quote is from António Ole, one of Angola’s most admired and internationally acknowledged artists.

“The world is in transition. And during transitions there tend to be artistic explosions, explosions of creativity.

Right now, everyone should be alert.

Interpreting the world is part of what we artists do,” he says.

One of a handful of artists who stayed on in Angola during the civil war, Ole, 60, has since exhibited all over the world including in venues such as London’s Hayward Gallery and the National Museum of African Art in Washington DC. He has also taken part in international exhibitions including the Venice Biennial, the São Paulo Biennial and ‘The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945–1994’ at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Ole’s work includes film, sculpture and photography as well as painting.

“What astonishes me is people’s creativity in Angolan civil society,” he says. “I feel very inspired by this positive energy.

Development is not only about education and health; it is also about the evolution of a cultural identity. From independence onwards, Angola has tried to find, construct and keep this identity. It’s a long marathon in which everyone takes part.

What Angola still needs is a more balanced society. Then you’ll see that we’re going to create artistic champions.”

Ole was born in Luanda, went to primary school in Portugal and was further educated in Lobito, Benguela and Luanda.

From 1975 onwards he produced a series of cultural films and musical programmes for Angolan national TV (TPA) in collaboration with the Angolan Film Institute. He also had his own radio programme on contemporary art.

Angola’s independence was a landmark in Ole’s life. “For me, that was a tremendous turning point,” he recalls. “I wanted to take part in the reconstruction of a new country.”

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António Ole

He later went to the United States to study African-American studies and film in his late twenties, first at the University of California and the the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. “That opened many doors. I wanted to talk about slavery, colonialism and the world’s hidden stories.

My African-American colleagues in the US hated to talk about these subjects, but you can’t progress without memories, history and awareness.”

His historically-inspired work has featured in exhibitions in Washington, Lisbon, South Africa and Brussels. “My contribution in that respect has been fulfilled,” he says. “Now I’m more curious about the mysterious, the things that don’t exist.”

When Ole returned to Angola in 1985, his country was “in collapse”, including its artistic scene. “At that point I decided to be a freelance artist. I wanted to change that.

“Africa is not in the spotlight,” he says.

“There are some European curators who don’t believe that contemporary art exists in Africa. That is complete ignorance. Most of the world’s problems stem from ignorance.”

Ole hates labels and says he does not belong to any particular artistic movement. “I always produce art that goes against those movements. I want that confrontation.” Part of that is expressed in his use of unlikely materials.

“Lots of my art was made with junk material: old doors, corrugated sheets, things that rot in the trash bin. You can (Right) Painting by Paulo Kussy

SEPTEMBER 2012 39

Paulo Kussy

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Indira Mateta

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Angolan Art Institutions Angolan art schools include the National School of Plastic Arts (Infac), the National Institute of Artistic and Cultural Training, and the School of Arts, Media and Painting.

Angola’s art galleries include the Humbi-Humbi Gallery and the Sosos Contemporary Art Gallery in Luanda.

The National Union of Plastic Artists (UNAP), the Museum of Angola and the Portuguese Cultural Centre in Luanda frequently house contemporary art exhibitions.

The Luanda Triennial Art Fair, sponsored by the Sindika Dokolo Foundation, is a mega-project aiming to build a new centre of contemporary art to house a collection representing 25 African countries.

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turn garbage into noble materials by giving them a magic touch.”

Ole currently finds his inspiration outside Luanda. He is working on a project centred on nine African islands that reflect the Creole culture. “I’ve finished a circle of work on cities. Now I’m more interested in discovering Angola’s coast and countryside.

I’d like to have a studio in southern Angola and work there more quietly and come back once in a while to socialise.”

The Luanda Triennial is an initiative of Fernando Alvim, the vice-president of the Sindika Dokolo Foundation and a well-known Angolan artist. Aged 49, he was born in Luanda and has created several art-related projects in Europe, the United States and Africa. His work has been exhibited in museums all over the world.

For Marcela Costa, 54, painting takes second place. She is first and foremost a tapestry artist, but nonetheless deserves space among the painters in this article because of her key role in Angola’s artistic scene. She is the creator and owner of the private art exhibition space Galeria Celamar, a collection of buildings which features long-term communal projects and permanent individual exhibitions. Galeria Celamar is a collection of buildings on the beach of Luanda’s Ilha, the sandspit protecting the city’s harbour.

Before Costa established Galeria Celamar, Luanda only had one artists’ association, the National Union of Plastic Artists (UNAP). The gallery brings together some 200 foreign and Angolan singers, theatre people, painters and sculptors.

Its projects are supported by several oil companies, banks and the Ministry of Culture. The Angolan government donated Celamar’s plot of land in 1991.

“Angola has a very rich cultural tradition that unfortunately has been little explored. We express our identity through art,” Costa says. “If that effort is not respected and supported by the government, we run the risk of our culture disappearing.”

Costa concurs with Ole. “I agree that we’re experiencing an explosion of art after

awards in France and has also exhibited in Brazil, the United States, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Norway, Portugal and Zimbabwe.

His work was shown at two Contemporary Art Biennials in Florence (2009 and 2011). The artist’s paintings can be found in various Sonangol buildings, Luanda’s International Airport, Ensa, Esso, Total, numerous banks in Luanda – Banco Espírito Santo Angola, Portuguese Investment Bank, Banco de Fomento Angola, African Investment Bank, Banco Sol, and the World Bank – and in various Angolan ministries, companies and upmarket Luanda hotels.

Another well-known Angolan painter is Paulo Kussy, 34. He studied fine arts in Lisbon and is fascinated by the human body. He passes on his artistic expertise to students at the Methodist University of Angola.

Kussy attended school in Luanda up until the sixth grade. He then lived in Lisbon

Miguel Gonçalves Indira Mateta

ten years of peace. We need to be careful with that explosion because we have to identify ourselves: who are we? We’re Angolans, we’re African. If we don’t, we might lose ourselves.”

Costa is inspired by the Chokwe provinces in eastern Angola, where she has studied cave paintings made by Angola’s forefathers. A farmer’s daughter, she was born in Kwanza Norte. “Rural surroundings are my inspiration, that’s where my roots are,” she says. “I look for women’s artefacts, and use them to complement my work.”

Her family moved to Luanda when she was six years old after her father died in the colonial war. “My mother worked hard to let us go to school so that we wouldn’t have to do the same hard, low-paid work that she did,” she explains.

She points to photos of young men in a brochure. “They are young artists, some former and others current street kids.

They’re very talented… and now they win big prizes in major contests.”

Costa became a designer at what is now the Ministry of Culture in 1987. She has had exhibitions in the United States, Asia, Europe and Africa. She has won numerous national and international awards. Her work can be found in Angolan political institutions, banks and embassies as well as in private company buildings and hotels.

Don Sebas Cassule, 44, was also born in Kwanza Norte province. His work features distinctly Angolan themes: bright colours; baobab trees; country women carrying babies; Angola’s first president Agostinho Neto; the charismatic Angolan queen Ginga (c1587-1663); and traditional indigenous musical instruments. Cassule also casts an eye on the country’s various ethnic groups and makes many references to Angolan history.

As in the case of most other artists mentioned here, Cassule is a member of UNAP and has participated in exhibitions at Galeria Celamar and at the Luanda Triennial. He has won three prestigious

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CULTURE

Don Sebas Cassule

SEPTEMBER 2012 41

Paulo Kussy

CULTURE

Paulo Kussy

Paulo Kussy at work

Paulo Kussy

42 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

‘Painting is like writing a song.

You spend five days thinking about the lyrics and the melody.

Then you go to the studio, close your eyes and just let it go’ – Paulo Kussy

Benjamim Sabby

‘We express our identity through art’– Marcela Costa with his family for 17 years. He spent all his family holidays were spent either in Rome, Madrid, Florence, Venice or Lisbon, the culture of which influenced him profoundly.

Kussy returned to Angola, where critics immediately applauded his art.

Angolan agricultural institution Sodepac was among the sponsors of Kussy’s first exhibition, alongside Unitel, real estate company Imogestim, and Mercedes-Benz. Casinos de Angola sponsored his latest exhibition.

“Painting is like writing a song,” Kussy explains in the café of a Luanda city centre hotel. “You spend five days thinking about the lyrics and the melody. Then you go to the studio, close your eyes and just let it go.”

Kussy is inspired by the PreRaphaelites, neoclassicism, baroque art, cubism, surrealism, architecture, graffiti art and the hectic day-to-day life of

Luanda. “I enjoy looking at people,” he says. “Our structure, muscles, fat – I study people when I look at them.” His paintings are all about “people fighting for space” and he places great emphasis on anatomy.

“The figures in my paintings ask for help.

They’re aggressive, they’re submissive, they are pulled away, pushed against.

“What’s Angolan about my work is that I’m Angolan. I’m contributing to the development of my country. There should not be a preconceived idea of what is Angolan or African or black or white art.

Art is all about the individual,” he argues.

“I’m mostly influenced by cities because I didn’t grow up in the countryside.

Big buildings, structures, that’s my library.

Not a woman carrying a child, or an elephant, a lion or a baobab tree. I’d be lying if I painted that. It would be fake.”

Angolan-Portuguese painter Miguel

Gonçalves, 42, was born in Angola and moved to Portugal at the age of six. “When the recession began, I sold my company and moved back to Angola. Angola is a magic place,” he says. “It’s something I cannot explain. I’m in love with my country. My future lies here; Europe is like a war right now.”

Each of Gonçalves’ colourful abstract paintings pay homage to a woman in his life: his grandmother, his ex-wife, his mother or his aunt. “Women have given me power, they have touched my life more than men,” he says. “But I never explain the personal story behind my work because I want buyers to interpret my work themselves.”

The artist exhibited his work at the Angolan National Insurance Company (Ensa) soon after his return to Angola in 2004. During the following Ensa contest

SEPTEMBER 2012 43

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Lula Ahrens

in 2008, Gonçalves won the second prize. He has appeared on TV Zimbo’s Sexto Sentido (Sixth Sense).

“Abroad, people think O Pensador [The Thinker, an iconic Angolan sculpture and symbol] and Chokwe style are all Angola has to offer. That frustrates me,” he says. “They’re wrong.”

Benjamim Sabby, 34, is one of Angola’s most sought-after artists. Born in Luanda, he studied at the National School of Plastic Arts, is an art teacher and works at Angola’s National Institute of Artistic and Cultural Training. His work has been exhibited in Luanda, Havana (Cuba), Hanover (Germany), Lisbon and Oporto (Portugal) and in Sofia (Bulgaria), as well as in Spain.

Sabby won the Luanda City Painting Prize in 1999 and got an honourable mention at Ensa in 2000. His works can be found at Sonangol, Banco de Fomento Angola, Angola Telecom, the provincial government of Luanda, BP Amoco, the Angolan Embassy in Montenegro, Ensa and Cabinda Gulf Oil Company.

Unfortunately women are not as well represented as men among the group of well-known Angolan painters, but Erika Sena da Silva Jâmece, 34, born in Luanda, is one of the exceptions.

Originally an interior decorator, she followed an art course at the National Institute of Artistic and Cultural Training and the National School of Plastic Arts from 1996 until 1999.

In 1996, she won the first prize in an international art contest held by the Polish Embassy in Luanda. Her work can be found in Sonangol buildings and in Portugal, South Africa and Brazil.

“Good painters don’t exist in Angola, only magnificent painters,” Jâmece extravagantly claims. “Artists who used to be anonymous are now able to express themselves and show their great works, which are now known in many countries.

“In my own paintings, I always try to show what goes on in my spirit and soul. Some of my work is very day-to-day Angolan.

I do some research on our dances and musical instruments and catapult everything into my paintings, sometimes in a realistic, sometimes in an abstract, style.”

Benjamim Sabby

CULTURE SPORTING SUCCESS

Many more Angolan painters could have been included in this article, but we hope this ‘sampler’ will encourage our readers to take a closer look at the country’s artistic talent. p

‘Good painters don’t exist in Angola, only magnificent painters’ – Erika Sena da Silva Jâmece Erika Sena da Silva Jâmece, (right) 11 SONANGOL UNIVERSO 44 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

CULTURE SPORTING SUCCESS

An artistic and spiritual master

Paulo Kussy

Indira Mateta

Detail of O Repouso do Sonhador by Benjamim Sabby

Mestre Paulo Kapela, a Mukongo from Uíge, has lived in Luanda since 1996 and speaks mainly French. Mestre Kapela returned to the public eye at the Luanda Triennial. His work has also been shown in exhibitions╩at the Venice Biennial 2007 and╩in Bordeaux 2009. In 2003 he was awarded the Art Prize of Centro Internacional de Civilizações Bantú in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. In spite of this international recognition, his work can only be understood in the context of his run-down studio in the centre of Luanda (a back entrance of the National Union of Plastic Artists), which looks more like a dark cave filled to the rim with mysterious collages.╩His works are abundant with historical, political, religious and social references.╩Among young, alternative artists, Mestre Kapela is seen as an artistic and spiritual master.

SONANGOL UNIVERSO 12

SEPTEMBER 2012 45

ADDC – Communications Dept.

Sonangol news briefing

Wheel success ■ Sonangol Schlesser Buggy chalked

ADDC – Communications Dept.

up further success in July by winning the two-wheel drive (2WD) category in the 300km FIA Cross Country World Cup in the Baja Aragon race in the area around Zaragoza in Spain.

The victory by the Sonangolsponsored team, led by former Formula 1 driver Jean-Louis Schlesser and supported by co-pilot Konstantin Zhiltsov, consolidates its leading position in the category.

Out of five races this year, Sonangol Schlesser Buggy has been overall winner in two – the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge and the Africa Eco Race – while it has won the 2WD category three times; the Italian Baja, the Sealine Rally in Qatar and July’s Baja Aragon.

46 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

New LNG trader

■ A new company has been established to sell Angola’s recently-developed liquefied

natural gas (LNG). Angola LNG Marketing (ALM) was set up in July in London and will be the exclusive trader of the 5.2-million tonnes of gas produced each year by the plant at Soyo in Zaire province.

The partners in the venture are the same ones who developed Angola LNG: Sonangol Gas Natural (50%), Chevron Global Energy (23.6%), BP Exploration (Angola) (8.8%), Eni International (8.8%) and Total LNG Angola (8.8%).

Suezmax tanker launched

■ A new crude oil tanker is about to join the Stena Sonangol Suezmax pool. Suezmax

tanker Stena Supreme was delivered from Samsung Heavy Industries in Geoje, South Korea, at the end of June. The vessel is owned by the Concordia Maritime shipping company but will be employed in the open market via the Stena Sonangol Suezmax pool.

The 274-metre-long vessel has a dead weight of 158,700 tonnes. Its fuel efficiency allows savings of up to 10 to 15 per cent compared to standard vessels and was ordered just two years ago.

The Stena Sonangol Suezmax pool is controlled by Stena Bulk and Sonangol.

Since it was established in 2005, the pool has generated better revenues than other competing pools. This year, plans are in place for an expansion to a total of 30 Suezmax tankers.

Sonangol news briefing

Kizomba payday

Rising oil output

■ Angola’s oil production is set to rise from a current level of

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around 1.8 million barrels a day to 2 million in 2014, Oil Minister José Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos told the press on July 20.

Oil production in Angola represents around 2 to 3 per cent of world output, he said. Former Sonangol board president Manuel Vicente told Britain’s Financial Times in July that Angola’s target oil production was 3.5 million barrels a day by 2020.

■ The first phase of the Kizomba Satellites project in Block 15

Young writers’ contest ■ Sonangol has launched a new literature prize aimed at

young Angolan writers. The Sonangol Revelation Prize will be started in July with the pumping of 100,000 barrels of oil a day. awarded in February 2013 to a promising young writer who has The aim is to eventually tap deposits estimated at 250 million not been previously published. barrels. Kizomba is an oil production partnership between Esso The competition will be held every two years and is open Exploration Angola and Sonangol. to Angolans resident in the country. The work may be literary The project involved connecting 18 new wells to production or scientific, as long as it is relevant to events or people in facilities on board Kizomba A and Kizomba B, two giant floating Angola. Entries for the first competition must be handed in by production, storage and offloading vessels. Delivered ahead of September 30 this year. A panel of five drawn from the Union schedule and accident-free, more than 2,000 tonnes of modules of Angolan Writers will judge the work submitted. were reconfigured on the vessels.

The modules were assembled in Angola and had a large amount of local content.

Exxon owns 40% of the block and its partners are BP PLC 26.67%, Eni SpA 20% and Statoil ASA 13.33%.

Sonangol is the concession holder.

■ Sonangol won a Golden Lion prize in July for its participation in the 29th Luanda International Fair (Filda). The trophy was awarded to the Angolan oil giant for best publicly-owned company at the annual fair.

Sonangol Filda prize

■ Sonangol’s industrial arm, Sonangol

Investimentos Industriais (SIIND), has invested $138 million in building 15 new industrial plants in the Luanda-Bengo Special Economic Zone (ZEE).

Eugénio Bravo da Rosa, president of SIIND’s executive commission, told the Angop news agency that Sonangol’s initiative was part of Angola’s re-industrialisation process and had helped create more than 3,000 direct and indirect jobs at the site. He added that Sonangol planned to complete 25 plants in the ZEE by the end of this year.

Peter Moeller

Industry boost

SEPTEMBER 2012 47

INDUSTRY

ANGOLA ON

TARGET FOR OIL SUPREMACY

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The development of Angola’s oil sector is proceeding at an ever-increasing pace. Oil expert, geologist and long-time Luandan resident Tako Koning shares his latest knowledge on the subject with Universo

48 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

INDUSTRY

Angola. These granites contain no oil but are rich in diamonds resulting in Angola becoming the fifth-largest producer of diamonds in the world.”

Ten years ago, Angola was producing 900,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) but in a “dramatic surge” this has more than doubled and is now rising towards the 2 million bpd mark. Angola’s oil output is now challenging the domination in sub-Saharan Africa of Nigeria, which currently produces 2.5 million bpd, says Koning, who has spent four decades in the oil business.

When Dutch-born and Canadianraised Koning received his bachelor of science degree in geology at the University of Alberta in 1971, he had no idea that 24 years later he would be calling Angola home.

Lonrho Mining

Giant diamond find 131.5 carats 38.3 carats 8.7 carats

A massive diamond has been discovered at the Lulo mining project in northeast Angola. The gleaming giant, at 131.5 carats, is much larger than the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond, which weighs in at 106 carats. The Koh-i-Noor diamond is the centrepiece of the British crown jewels.

A year after graduating, Koning joined Texaco as an exploration geologist and began a journey that would take him from the Grand Banks of Newfoundland to the Canadian Arctic, to Indonesia and finally to Africa.

Today, besides working as a consultant, Koning, 62, has also has turned his considerable worldwide experience to humanitarian work, chairing the Angola Mosquito Nets Project and supporting water well drilling projects in rural Cabinda, Angola.

Early days Historically, Koning says that the first recorded use of Angola’s oil resources was in the late 1700s, although local indigenous Angolans had undoubtedly known for many generations. Portuguese explorers found the easily accessible oil seeping through cliffs along with asphalt deposits at Libongos, 60km northeast of Luanda.

They shipped some of this oil to Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro to be used as a caulking material to make their ships waterproof.

Koning sees 1915 as the next significant landmark in Angola’s oil development when the Companhia de Pesquisas Minerais de Angola (Minerals Exploration Company of Angola) drilled for oil in the Dande river valley, just inland from the coastal fishing village of Dande, 40km north of Luanda.

Besides oil, Angola is rich in diamonds, making it the fifth-largest producer in the world SEPTEMBER 2012 49

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ithin the next decade Angola is expected to replace Nigeria as the leading oil producer in Africa thanks to its “highly favourable petroleum geology”, predicts geologist Tako Koning, who has a wealth of experience in the world of oil exploration.

He describes Angola as being exceedingly lucky with its geology. “You need sedimentary rocks to have oil. If a country has only granitic, metamorphic or volcanic rocks, then it has no oil. It’s as simple as that. In Angola’s case, it has extensive oil-bearing sedimentary basins, almost entirely offshore, which have catapulted Angola into becoming a major oil producer.

“But Angola is even lucky with its granites, which cover most of onshore

INDUSTRY

The Dande-4 well was drilled in 1916 and registered a flow of just six barrels per day – this was the first mechanical flow of oil in Angola, albeit modest in volume.

Dande-4 was abandoned but further sporadic drilling took place without any commercial success until 1955 when the Benfica-2 well, just south of Luanda, became the first commercially viable oil discovery. It entered production a year later; thus 1956 marked the starting point of Angola’s role as an oil-producing nation.

Offshore launch Angola’s offshore oilfields debuted in 1968 in Cabinda with the discovery of the Malongo oilfield, Angola’s first seabed success story. The operator was the Cabinda Gulf Oil Company (Cabgoc).

Chevron bought Gulf Oil in 1985 and still operates in the region, producing a massive 500,000 bpd from Blocks 0 and 14 offshore Cabinda.

Another important milestone was achieved in 1976, shortly after Angola gained its independence, with the establishment of the state oil company Sonangol. Indeed, this year Sonangol celebrated its 36th anniversary.

By 1996, Angola was producing about 700,000 bpd, and in that year the next major milestone occurred when Elf Petroleum (now Total) discovered the Girassol oilfield in Block 17 at a water depth of 1,300 metres about 140km offshore.

The field is located midway between Cabinda and Luanda. This was a big surprise for the oil industry given that it was very distant from the coast and in a new geological formation consisting of Tertiaryage (Miocene) turbidite sandstones and conglomerates. Additional drilling by Elf proved Girassol to be a giant field.

Elf’s fortunes were followed by further discoveries in similar offshore geological formations by operators including Total, Chevron, Esso, BP, and Maersk Oil. Today, these deep-sea wells account for around 75 per cent of Angola’s output.

Without them the country’s production would have stagnated at a level of around 500,000 bpd and Angola would have been a medium-sized oil producer rather than the potential giant it is becoming.

Angola’s oil output from deep-sea areas below 500 metres eclipsed shallowwater wells (less than 500 metres) between the years 2000 and 2005. In 2012, more

Tako Koning has been living and working in Angola since 1995. He was born in Holland and grew up in Canada.

He has been a petroleum geologist for over 40 years and has worked in several countries, including Canada, Indonesia and Nigeria. He is currently a consultant with the UK-US oil consulting company Gaffney, Cline & Associates. Koning frequently leads geological field trips in Angola for oil industry professionals, university students and the general public. He is also an active board member of the Luanda branches of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and the Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts (SPWLA).

50 SONANGOL UNIVERSO

Henriette Koning

Tako Koning profile

than two-thirds of Angola’s oil will be sourced from deep-sea wells.

Accordingly, Angola has become a major global player in deepwater oil production, along with Nigeria, Brazil and the Gulf of Mexico.

Future prospects Brazil has served as a source of encouragement and inspiration for Angola’s more recent discoveries and the prospect for even greater growth in its oil reserves.

Brazil’s Tupi oilfield, which faces Angola across the South Atlantic, was discovered in 2007. The state-run oil company Petrobras drilled 7,300m below sea level at a water depth of 2,100m and discovered a deposit containing an estimated 8 billion recoverable barrels of oil.

Tupi was Brazil’s first pre-salt discovery, so named because of its location below a thick impervious layer of salt which is difficult to penetrate. Since renamed “Lula” after the country’s popular ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Tupi proved to be the first of a number of oil and gas fields in the pre-salt geological formations along Brazil’s coast.

Independent consultants estimate

On January 4, 2012, Maersk Oil announced that drilling at the Azul-1 well in deepwater Block 23 in the Kwanza basin was the first to discover pre-salt oil. The well was drilled to a total depth of 5,334m in 923m of water. Potential flow capacity was estimated at above 3,000 bpd.

Cobalt International Energy followed this up with an announcement on February 9 that the exploration well Cameia-1 in deepwater Block 21 had confirmed the presence of oil and gas in another pre-salt section. Drill stem testing measured oil flows of 5,010 bpd and 14.3 million cubic feet of gas per day. Cobalt believes the well could potentially deliver over 20,000 bpd.

Accordingly, the first two wells drilled for the pre-salt in the deepwater area of the Kwanza basin have both been successes.

On a worldwide basis, Koning says, this is an amazing success rate for a new oil play.

Koning describes Angola’s subsalt potential as “very promising” but cautions that much more drilling is needed to emulate Brazil’s successes. However, his optimism appears well-founded. The prestigious US Geological Survey forecasts that Angola’s pre-salt layer could contain as much as 30 billion barrels of oil. p

Angola’s oil systems Angola has four sedimentary basins: Benguela, Kwanza and Congo in the north and Namibe in the south. Only the Kwanza and Congo basins have yielded oil so far. The Namibe basin has never been drilled, so it is viewed as a frontier basin. Much more exploration is warranted in the basin, but old seismic and geological data suggest it has “plenty of potential”, says geologist Tako Koning.

Another extremely important milestone for Angola, says Koning, will be the inauguration of the Angola liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Soyo, northern Angola. Sonangol has stated that the plant will produce 5.2 million tonnes of LNG per year, which in energy terms amounts to about 200,000 bpd, approximately equal to 10 per cent of Angola’s current level of oil production. Koning says this will terminate the flaring of gas in Angola’s oilfields, generate LNG exports and create many job opportunities for Angolans.

Remarkably, since oil production commenced in 1956, adds Koning, there has never been a major accident or oil spill. That is a record which everyone in Angola’s oil industry is proud of and determined to keep.

Back cover image: Peter Moeller

Subsalt discoveries

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Brazil’s pre-salt reserves at 20 to 30 billion barrels, while Brazil’s oil regulator ANP bullishly sees them at as much as 50 billion.

Geologist Koning explains that Angola’s pre-salt formations mirror those along Brazil’s coast, to which it was once joined 140 million years ago. The hope is that Brazil’s success can be repeated in Angola, he says.

In 2011, Angola auctioned 11 deep and ultra-deep (below a sea depth of 1,500 metres) pre-salt exploration blocks in the Kwanza and Benguela basins, where the geology largely replicates, Brazil’s highly productive Santos and Campos basins.

Operators taking up the challenge of pre-salt oil drilling included BP, Cobalt, Repsol, Total, Eni, ConocoPhillips and Statoil. Statoil was the largest player of this group in terms of acquiring two operated blocks and interests in three non-operated blocks.

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SEPTEMBER 2012 51

Proudly Angolan

Tranquil waters lap the southern edges of Kwanza Norte.

Come and visit the province on Luanda’s doorstep.