African buzz
SA taps into Angolan oil
South Africa has entered the race to tap into vast investment
opportunities in Angola, Africa’s second biggest oil-producing market.
Beyond the traditional African oil players, most of them coming
from Nigeria, South African companies have increasingly showed
interest in regionalising and expanding their businesses beyond
their home country. President João Lourenço chose South Africa as
his first state visit destination as president, which was followed in
2018 by a South African trade and investment mission to Luanda.
While Mozambique’s Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) mega projects
are seen by many South African construction, services and supply
companies as very attractive and nearby opportunities, a sizeable and
expanding market like Angola has also appeared on their radar in
recent years.
This is notably the case at South Africa’s state-owned giants like
the Central Energy Fund (CEF), in charge of both developing a
robust domestic energy market and securing the energy supplies
South Africa needs to support its growing economy. Under the
Integrated Resources Plan set to be adopted by the country this
year, 8 100MW of additional gas-to-power capacity is to be added
in South Africa by 2030. South Africa also remains sub-Saharan
Africa’s largest refiner and is planning additional refining and
petrochemicals units that will all require crude oil and natural gas
supplies that do not exist domestically.
It is hence no surprise that Angola, with its lucrative opportunities
and reformed business environment, hosted a strong delegation
of South African companies during the Angola Oil & Gas
Conference 2019, held in Luanda recently. The summit is
organised by Africa Oil & Power and endorsed by the Ministry of
Mineral Resources and Petroleum of Angola.
“The economic reforms passed by President Lourenço and the
opening of wide swathes of oil and gas acreage constitute the
single biggest exploration opportunity in the history of Angola,”
says Guillaume Doane, CEO of Africa Oil & Power. “This is
a new era for Angola that will herald the arrival of several new
entrants to the market.”
AngloPlats opens new smelter in Zimbabwe
Anglo American Platinum recently opened the completed Unki
Mine’s smelter at a ceremony held at the mine in Shurugwi,
Zimbabwe. Unki mine is a strategic investment for Anglo
American Platinum, which remains a long-term investor in
Zimbabwe. The smelter, whose construction was announced in
2015, is an extension of the company’s commitment to local
beneficiation of minerals and is in line with the government’s
plans for economic growth in the country. The custom-
designed, cost-efficient smelter is sized to meet Unki’s current
www.africanmining.co.za
SA president Cyril Ramaphosa and President João Laurenço from Angola.
Among the new entrants, the Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF), a CEF
group company, will be present to investigate the various licences
and blocks Angola have to offer. The state-owned entity already
recently became owner and operator of South Sudan’s Block B2
under an exploration and production sharing agreement (EPSA)
signed in Juba this month and is keen to continue securing
additional assets and reserves across Africa’s key oil markets that
can benefit South Africans.
“The Strategic Fuel Fund seeks to invest in and acquire key oil
and gas assets across Africa that can be of important interest
to the host countries and South Africa,” said Godfrey Moagi,
CEO of the SFF. “In our quest for attractive assets with vast
resource potential, we believe Angola offers the right kind of
environment, mature fields and political leadership needed to
realise successful ventures.”
Angola has indeed just released a new oil licensing strategy
up to 2025 and is about to launch, for the first time, a bidding
round that includes marginal oil fields with an attractive fiscal
framework. Oil concessions are now overseen by a new and
independent agency, the ANPG, which took this responsibility
over from state-owned Sonangol in a move to make the process
more efficient and transparent.
production and retains the capability for later upgrades to meet
future increased mine production. The scope of the facility is
the primary smelting of Unki concentrate to produce a furnace
matte which is crushed on site and transported to the Anglo
American Platinum Converter process facility in Rustenburg,
in South Africa, for further processing.
The furnace heat-up at the smelter started in early August 2018
and it has been ramping-up with the first production of matte
at the end of September 2018. The export of crushed matte
commenced in mid-November 2018.
JULY - AUGUST 2019 AFRICAN MINING
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