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SONANGOL UNIVERSO ISSUE 36 – DECEMBER 2012<br />
Universo<br />
www.universo-magazine.com<br />
ANGOLA GERMANY:<br />
Engineering success<br />
Happy<br />
Birthday<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong><br />
London!<br />
WILD FRONTIERS:<br />
Cross-border conservation<br />
CUISINE:<br />
Thought for food<br />
INSIDE:<br />
oil and gas news<br />
DECEMBER 2012
Universo is the international<br />
magazine of <strong>Sonangol</strong><br />
Board Members<br />
Francisco de Lemos José Maria<br />
(President), Mateus de Brito, Anabela<br />
Fonseca, Sebastião Gaspar Martins,<br />
Fernando Roberto, Baptista Sumbe,<br />
Raquel Vunge<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> Department for<br />
Communication & Image<br />
Director<br />
João Rosa Santos<br />
Corporate Communications Assistants<br />
Nadiejda Santos, Lúcio Santos, Sarissari<br />
Diniz, José Mota, Beatriz Silva, Paula<br />
Almeida, Sandra Teixeira, Marta Sousa,<br />
Hélder Sirgado, Kimesso Kissoka<br />
Publisher<br />
Sheila O’Callaghan<br />
Editor<br />
John Kolodziejski<br />
Art Director<br />
Tony Hill<br />
Sub Editor<br />
Ron Gribble<br />
Circulation Manager<br />
Matthew Alexander<br />
Project Consultants<br />
Nathalie MacCarthy<br />
Mauro Perillo<br />
Group President<br />
John Charles Gasser<br />
Universo is produced by Impact Media<br />
Custom Publishing. The views expressed<br />
in the publication are not necessarily<br />
those of <strong>Sonangol</strong> or the publishers.<br />
Reproduction in whole or in part<br />
without prior permission is prohibited.<br />
This magazine is distributed to a closed<br />
circulation. To receive a free copy:<br />
circulation@universo-magazine.com<br />
Circulation: 17,000<br />
Davenport House<br />
16 Pepper Street<br />
London E14 9RP<br />
United Kingdom<br />
Tel + 44 20 7510 9595<br />
Fax +44 20 7510 9596<br />
sonangol@impact-media.com<br />
www.universo-magazine.com<br />
Cover: Viewgene<br />
Brazuk Ltd<br />
A note of<br />
optimism<br />
Angola’s remarkable economic growth is much more than just<br />
a building boom. Important quality-of-life changes are also<br />
under way, often going unnoticed by many.<br />
One case in point is Luanda Bay’s shoreline makeover.<br />
As well as the project’s obvious success in removing traffic bottlenecks<br />
and opening up the improved leisure area to all, the removal of waste<br />
water and other pollutants provides cleaner water and sweetersmelling<br />
air as well as an improved sea-life habitat.<br />
Walkers now delight in the sight of densely-packed shoals of fish<br />
turning the water into a bubbling cauldron as they leap and feed on<br />
small fry. Priceless.<br />
Another overlooked quality upgrade in Angola’s everyday life is in<br />
its service industries. Qualified younger people, many trained abroad,<br />
now offer services matching those of any developed economy.<br />
Recently having to set up a mobile broadband connection – an<br />
essential item for any visiting businessman – a visit to a small, innercity<br />
mobile phone shop was rewarded with helpful, speedy service<br />
from the staff, delivered with smiles. Hugely satisfying.<br />
Angola is getting there, and not just in the built environment!<br />
John Kolodziejski<br />
Editor<br />
4 ANGOLA NEWS BRIEFING<br />
President honours Congo Kings; Gove Dam<br />
restarts; Cacuso rail link; Palancas Negras<br />
football team through to finals; Angola polio<br />
victory commemorated; Cabinda’s ports get<br />
$1 billion-dollar investment<br />
6 ANGOLA-GERMANY:<br />
ENGINEERING SUCCESS<br />
Partnership in high technology and training<br />
14 COOK’S TOUR OF ANGOLA’S KITCHENS<br />
What tickles Angola’s tastebuds<br />
20 LUANDA’S EMBRACE:<br />
THE BENGO REGION<br />
Providing for Luanda’s growth and leisure<br />
28 PROLONGING ANGOLA’S OIL BENEFITS<br />
The new sovereign wealth fund<br />
32 KINGDOM OF THE WILD FRONTIERS<br />
A vast cross-border conservation area takes shape<br />
40 PARALYMPICS TEAM STRIKES GOLD<br />
Talisman Sayovo gains gold again<br />
42 SONANGOL NEWS BRIEFING<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> and Maersk oil find; ZEE latest; new<br />
fuel depot at Kuando Kubango; <strong>Sonangol</strong> Starfish<br />
returns Brazil block; Team Schlesser denied World<br />
Cup win; <strong>Sonangol</strong> grants 500 scholarships; Rio<br />
<strong>Oil</strong> and Gas<br />
44 LONDON REGENERATION<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd turns thirty<br />
Contents<br />
2 SONANGOL UNIVERSO DECEMBER 2012 3<br />
© Photographer: Jens Görlich © CGI: MO CGI GbR<br />
Lula Ahrens<br />
Brazuk Ltd<br />
Leslie Crookes<br />
Henrique Malungo, courtesy of BP Angola<br />
6<br />
14<br />
20<br />
32<br />
40
Angola news briefing Angola news briefing<br />
Palancas Negras<br />
through to finals<br />
■ Angola’s national side, the Palancas Negras, beat Zimbabwe 2-0 in<br />
Luanda in October. Both goals, scored in the first five minutes, came<br />
from team talisman and former Manchester United player Manucho. The<br />
Palancas turned around a 3-1 defeat suffered in the first leg match in<br />
Harare and qualified thanks to their away goal.<br />
The result means Angola go through to the finals of the Africa Cup of<br />
Nations for a fifth successive campaign. The AFCON finals will be held in<br />
South Africa in 2013. The Palancas’ win was the team’s second victory in<br />
three matches for their Uruguayan coach Gustavo Ferrín who took over<br />
in July.<br />
4 SONANGOL UNIVERSO<br />
ALEXANDER JOE/AFP/Getty<br />
President<br />
honours<br />
Congo Kings<br />
■ President José Eduardo dos Santos has laid a<br />
statue foundation stone commemorating the kings<br />
of the once powerful ancient Kingdom of the Congo<br />
which included parts of present-day Angola.<br />
The act took place at M’banza Congo in Zaire<br />
province, where the government aims to raise the<br />
status of the city to an UNESCO World Heritage<br />
Site and help make it an historic tourist attraction.<br />
Minister for Culture Rosa Maria Martins da Cruz<br />
e Silva said the statue was also a tribute to King<br />
Dom Antonió the First, who ruled Congo 1661-<br />
1665. M’banza Congo was then the main city on<br />
the west coast of Africa and had a population of<br />
44,000 including around 4,000 Europeans.<br />
Cacuso rail link<br />
■ Rail company Caminhos de Ferro de Luanda (CFL) is to<br />
build a new branchline off the Luanda-Malange route to<br />
serve the rich agribusiness lands around Cacuso.<br />
Two main sites will benefit: Biocom, where an<br />
ambitious sugar and ethanol complex has been ramping<br />
up production to meet Angola’s sugar needs and has<br />
the prospect of producing biofuel as well; and Pungo<br />
Andongo, a huge irrigated farming area producing a large<br />
range of agricultural products.<br />
Gove Dam restarts<br />
■ President dos Santos reopened the Gove Dam in<br />
Huambo province at the end of August. The 60MW<br />
hydropower plant on the River Cunene had been off-line<br />
for over 20 years. The revamp means more power for<br />
industry in Huambo and Bié provinces. There are around<br />
120 industries in Huambo, and the dam’s energy is likely to<br />
boost interest in a new greenfield industrial park at Caála.<br />
Billion-dollar<br />
ports bonanza<br />
■ Over $1 billion is to be invested in Cabinda province<br />
ports over the next five years, says Transport Minister<br />
Augusto da Silva Tomás. He made the announcement<br />
during the opening ceremony of the new pier at<br />
Cabinda port, which he said was just the starting point<br />
of a larger programme.<br />
The minister revealed that construction of a new<br />
deepwater port would go ahead at Caio, also in<br />
Cabinda province: “We are doing our best so that the<br />
port gains an important role in the group of national<br />
and neighbouring countries’ ports, namely those<br />
in the two Congos.” He added that the investment<br />
was proof of the Angolan government’s strong<br />
commitment to development and better wealth<br />
distribution in the country.<br />
FIGURED OUT<br />
$5 billion<br />
start-up pot for Angola’s sovereign wealth fund<br />
Angola polio<br />
victory<br />
■ In August, Angola commemorated a year without any new polio<br />
cases being reported. In 2010 there were 33 cases and just five in 2011,<br />
while in the 12 months to August none were reported. The last case<br />
registered was that of a 14-months-old child in Uíge province in July<br />
2011. The success is attributed to improved disease surveillance and<br />
mass polio vaccination campaigns, along with greater access to safe<br />
water, sanitation and hygiene.<br />
20 million tonnes<br />
14<br />
number of Angolan airports totally upgraded by 2014<br />
Brazuk Ltd<br />
Rob Byron<br />
annual future output from Kassinga iron ore mine<br />
Angola in numbers<br />
100,000 tonnes<br />
Bengo’s banana crop for 2012/2013<br />
15 million<br />
annual passenger capacity at new Luanda Airport hub<br />
DECEMBER 2012 5
Martin Lehmann<br />
INTERNATIONAL<br />
ANGOLA-GERMANY:<br />
ENGINEERING<br />
SUCCESS<br />
The most obvious evidence of Germany’s presence<br />
in Angola is the array of high-quality vehicles on its<br />
roads. However, economic interchanges between<br />
the two countries are taking place in other, often<br />
less visible areas. Universo takes a closer look<br />
6 SONANGOL UNIVERSO DECEMBER 2012 7
INTERNATIONAL INTERNATIONAL<br />
A<br />
ngola is well aware of Germany’s<br />
well-deserved global reputation<br />
for reliable, quality engineering.<br />
Luanda’s police use Audi cars<br />
to patrol the streets, while other imposing<br />
German vehicles such as BMWs and<br />
Mercedes-Benz grace Angola’s newlyrebuilt<br />
roads from Cabinda to Cunene.<br />
President José Eduardo dos Santos<br />
expressed his own confidence in German<br />
engineering prowess during the visit<br />
of Chancellor Angela Merkel in July<br />
last year when he said her country<br />
would be the preferred partner in Angola’s<br />
energy projects.<br />
“I informed her that Angola will build<br />
three large power dams over the next<br />
few years and the electromechanical<br />
equipment used in these powerproduction<br />
plants would be of German<br />
origin,” the president said. The equipment,<br />
mainly turbines, would be worth around<br />
€1 billion, he added.<br />
Germany’s Voith and Siemens are seen<br />
as the likely beneficiaries of this verbal<br />
agreement, given that Voith supplied<br />
the turbines for the recently upgraded<br />
Cambambe Dam near Dondo.<br />
The first of three dams slated to use<br />
the German equipment is the country’s<br />
largest power project, the 2,067 megawatt<br />
Laúca Dam in Kwanza Norte province.<br />
Construction work began in June and the<br />
dam is expected to come on-line in July 2016.<br />
President dos Santos described the<br />
joint declaration of common intent during<br />
Chancellor Merkel’s visit as “written in<br />
letters of gold in the history of relations<br />
between the two countries”.<br />
The chancellor was the first German<br />
head of government to visit Angola.<br />
She agreed to a “wide-ranging political<br />
partnership” between the two countries,<br />
which included the creation of a bilateral<br />
commission charged with developing<br />
political, social, economic, cultural,<br />
scientific and educational relations.<br />
Training and education<br />
President dos Santos also indicated there<br />
would be a German role in developing<br />
much-needed training and education to<br />
aid Angola’s industrialisation. Education,<br />
Angop<br />
President dos Santos alongside Chancellor Merkel during her 2011 visit to Angola Lufthansa flies to Luanda twice weekly<br />
he said, was key to enabling all Angolans<br />
to take part in the life of Angolan society.<br />
He pointed out to journalists that when<br />
Angola achieved independence there had<br />
been a 98 per cent illiteracy rate. “That<br />
data is the starting point, and although<br />
much improved since, there is still a lack of<br />
qualified personnel in sufficient numbers,<br />
which is the condition for getting value<br />
from Angola’s potentially rich land.”<br />
Germany’s ambassador Jörg-Werner<br />
Marquardt agrees that one of the greatest<br />
constraints on social and economic<br />
development is a shortage of skilled workers.<br />
“We give a great deal of support to<br />
professional training because we believe<br />
that without qualified people we won’t<br />
have sustainable development,” he told<br />
Jornal de Angola.<br />
Consequently, one of the main thrusts of<br />
Germany’s co-operation efforts in Angola is<br />
vocational. Its aim is to help build Angola’s<br />
human capital to aid industrialisation and<br />
economic diversification as well as socioeconomic<br />
integration.<br />
Vocational training, widely viewed as<br />
a key ingredient to Germany’s economic<br />
success, is supported in Angola under<br />
a bilateral government-to-government<br />
agreement by the German Agency for<br />
International Cooperation (GIZ) on behalf of<br />
the German Federal Ministry for Economic<br />
Cooperation and Development (BMZ).<br />
GIZ has been working in Angola since<br />
1995, initially helping in food security,<br />
peace-building and rehabilitating the<br />
physically handicapped. More recently,<br />
German government support has<br />
concentrated its efforts on aiding Angola’s<br />
vocational education, training and<br />
business development.<br />
GIZ is addressing this problem through<br />
helping reform vocational training under<br />
the Ministry of Public Administration,<br />
Employment and Social Security<br />
(Mapess), notably in construction. One<br />
of Germany’s success stories has been its<br />
apprenticeship scheme; which combines<br />
on-the-job learning with formal college<br />
training. Just over half of Germany’s young<br />
people go through this system. There are<br />
more than 340 recognised professions<br />
where this training qualification is a<br />
condition of employment.<br />
GIZ work in Angola includes capacitybuilding<br />
for defining occupational<br />
profiles, skill requirements, curricula and<br />
test item development as well as training<br />
for certain trades such as bricklaying and<br />
installing domestic electrical wiring. The<br />
organisation has done this by calling on<br />
practitioners to contribute to and agree<br />
on the requisite skills to be learnt.<br />
GIZ has also held seminars aimed<br />
at promoting small and medium-sized<br />
enterprises in Angola. Germany’s powerful<br />
Chancellor Merkel’s visit was<br />
“written in letters of gold<br />
in the history of relations<br />
between the two countries”<br />
German-backed trainees in Luanda<br />
German companies<br />
with offices<br />
in Angola<br />
8 SONANGOL UNIVERSO DECEMBER 2012 9<br />
GIZ-FormPRO copyright R.Maro<br />
ASGM (VW)<br />
BAUER Angola<br />
Bayer HealthCare<br />
Commerzbank<br />
DHL Internacional (Angola)<br />
Ferrostaal AG<br />
GAUFF Engineering<br />
GIZ International <strong>Services</strong><br />
Krones Angola<br />
Kuehne + Nagel (Angola)<br />
Lufthansa<br />
Nehlsen Ambiente Angola<br />
Nokia Siemens Networks<br />
Schenker AG<br />
Sertopo<br />
Siemens SA Angola<br />
TrevoTech<br />
C Woermann Angola<br />
Source: German Embassy, Luanda<br />
© Photographer: Jens Görlich © CGI: MO CGI GbR
INTERNATIONAL INTERNATIONAL<br />
GAUFF’s activities in Angola<br />
WATER<br />
Water supply: exploration, storage,<br />
transport and distribution<br />
Waste-water: drainage, treatment,<br />
and re-use of treated water and sludge<br />
ENVIRONMENT<br />
Solid-waste management<br />
TRANSPORT<br />
Urban transportation solutions<br />
(roads, rails and parking)<br />
ENERGY<br />
Hydropower<br />
Renewables (solar and wind energy)<br />
AGRICULTURE<br />
Rural development and organisation<br />
Dams and irrigation<br />
Rural transportation<br />
economy is mainly based on the small and<br />
medium-sized companies which account<br />
for 80 per cent of its GDP.<br />
Angola-Germany trade<br />
Angola is Germany’s third most important<br />
market in sub-Saharan Africa. Bilateral<br />
trade tripled to $1.5 billion last year,<br />
rocketing from just $491 million in 2010.<br />
The 2011 figure was atypical given that<br />
German access to Libyan oil was blocked<br />
and Angola thus filled the supply gap, but<br />
in future Germany is expected to buy more<br />
hydrocarbons from Angola given that the<br />
Soyo liquefied natural gas plant is now up<br />
and running.<br />
While Angola currently sells mainly<br />
crude to Germany, German exports to<br />
Angola are much more diversified. Apart<br />
from vehicles, German sales include oil<br />
and gas-sector equipment for the offshore<br />
industry, construction plant, high-tech<br />
hospital apparatus, bottling and packaging<br />
equipment, telecommunications,<br />
electrical equipment, pharmaceuticals,<br />
10 SONANGOL UNIVERSO<br />
engineering-consultancy services and<br />
water-supply systems.<br />
GAUFF fast track<br />
One of Germany’s most prominent<br />
companies in Angola is Nuremberg-based<br />
GAUFF Engineering. Founded by 81-yearold<br />
patriarch Helmut P. Gauff, it has been<br />
active in the country since 1995.<br />
GAUFF started operations on the<br />
continent in 1965 and has gained<br />
experience in more than 30 African<br />
countries. The company assists the<br />
reconstruction and modernisation of<br />
public and social infrastructure in Angola<br />
with efficient “Fast Track Solutions”.<br />
GAUFF’s main activities involve<br />
engineering, procurement, and project<br />
and operation management for public<br />
and industrial infrastructure projects –<br />
such as urban and rural roads, parking<br />
areas, road and rail transportation,<br />
bridges, water supply and waste-water<br />
systems, hydropower, renewable energy<br />
and rural development.<br />
Pipe-laying in Lubango<br />
As part of its Fast Track Solutions,<br />
GAUFF offers close co-operation with<br />
German banks, which can provide tailormade<br />
long-term financing.<br />
Since its arrival in Angola, GAUFF has<br />
executed many engineering services for a<br />
number of government ministries, such<br />
as studies for improving Luanda’s urban<br />
transport. Since 2004, GAUFF has been<br />
active in designing and supervising the<br />
reconstruction of long-distance highways<br />
totalling more than 1,000km in different<br />
Angolan provinces. A large part of these<br />
highways benefited from GAUFF’s help in<br />
arranging finance as part of its Fast Track<br />
Solutions scheme.<br />
The company has also been supporting<br />
Luanda’s water-supply company EPAL<br />
since 2003 in its planning and investment<br />
for rehabilitating and extending urban<br />
supply systems. As an EPPM (Engineering<br />
Procurement and Project Management)<br />
consultant, GAUFF is currently also<br />
responsible for the first phase of the<br />
development of the water supply and<br />
Courtesy GAUFF Engineering<br />
waste-water system of Lubango, with an<br />
investment and finance package of €90<br />
million. Lubango has a very fast-growing<br />
population of around 1.2 million.<br />
Apart from these activities, GAUFF<br />
has also drawn up proposals for minihydropower<br />
plants for decentralised<br />
energy supplies to various provinces.<br />
The company employs many<br />
Angolans and offers them practical and<br />
theoretical training based on the German<br />
apprenticeship system, which is a very<br />
important aspect in all the projects<br />
The promotion of capable young<br />
Angolan technicians together with other<br />
German partners and universities is an<br />
important objective in GAUFF’s strategy.<br />
For many years, it has organised studies<br />
for its Angolan employees in Europe.<br />
To fulfil its social responsibility, the<br />
GAUFF Foundation co-operates actively<br />
with Angolan social foundations and<br />
promotes and assists, among other<br />
activities, several orphanages in Angola<br />
and sports clubs in the provinces.<br />
Angolan Orlando Ferraz (pictured<br />
right) has been with GAUFF for seven years,<br />
having spent a total of 17 years in Germany<br />
where he studied at the Universities of<br />
Bonn and North Rhine-Westphalia.<br />
“The most attractive points in working<br />
for a German company are those that<br />
have to do with the virtues by which<br />
the Germans are known: seriousness,<br />
thoroughness in the execution and<br />
Some prominent Germans<br />
Albert Einstein – physicist<br />
Johannes Gutenberg – inventor of the printing press<br />
Felix Hoffmann – inventor of aspirin<br />
meeting of commitments, and punctuality<br />
in meetings as well as in meeting<br />
timetables agreed in contractual clauses<br />
– in other words, responsibility in their<br />
approach,” he says.<br />
During his long stay in Germany,<br />
Ferraz was a leader of the Angolan student<br />
community. Consequently, he travelled<br />
throughout the country and got to know<br />
all 16 federal states.<br />
“Learning the language opened many<br />
doors for me and made it easier to fit in<br />
socially. It was a much smoother and<br />
deeper relationship.”<br />
Ferraz read widely in German and,<br />
being passionate about music, appreciated<br />
contemporary German artistes such as<br />
Matthias Reim, Modern Talking and<br />
Herbert Grönemeyer.<br />
Ferraz said his favourite German dish<br />
was Maultaschen, a kind of pasta envelope,<br />
similar to ravioli, filled with minced meat<br />
in hollandaise sauce or cream, as well as<br />
the famous Nuremberg sausages.<br />
Rudolf Diesel – inventor of the diesel engine<br />
Karl Benz – inventor of the petrol-engine car<br />
Adolf Dassler – inventor of Adidas sports shoes<br />
“The attractions of working for a<br />
German company are seriousness,<br />
thoroughness and responsibility in<br />
their approach” – Orlando Ferraz<br />
Brazuk Ltd<br />
DECEMBER 2012 11
INTERNATIONAL INTERNATIONAL<br />
Siemens Angola: areas of activity<br />
Energy generation,<br />
transmission and distribution<br />
Water projects<br />
<strong>Oil</strong> industry equipment<br />
Gas turbines, compressors<br />
Mining<br />
Electrical and engineering<br />
services and maintenance<br />
Automation and instrumentation<br />
Airport equipment<br />
Healthcare<br />
Telecommunications<br />
12 SONANGOL UNIVERSO<br />
Siemens<br />
Siemens<br />
Siemens solutions shop<br />
Germany’s Siemens, one of the world’s<br />
leading engineering conglomerates, is<br />
also present in Angola. The company had<br />
a global turnover of €73.5 billion last year.<br />
Angola accounted for a small but growing<br />
part of this figure.<br />
Siemens only re-established offices<br />
in Angola in 2005 after an absence of<br />
many years. Siemens Angola had sales of<br />
€10.5 million in 2011 but its order book,<br />
worth €15.8 million, pointed to growth.<br />
The company offers a broad range of<br />
equipment, engineering and related<br />
services for industry, energy, healthcare<br />
and infrastructure.<br />
Current Siemens activity in Angola<br />
includes power-generation and waterpumping<br />
systems, notably for the important<br />
offshore oil industry where <strong>Sonangol</strong>,<br />
Chevron and Total are clients. Siemens<br />
installed eight gas turbines to power Angola<br />
LNG’s Soyo plant and has supplied an<br />
11.5MW generator for Luanda’s refinery.<br />
Its other high-profile projects in<br />
Angola are a telecommunications network<br />
operation in partnership with Nokia and<br />
the supply of a radiotherapy apparatus to<br />
the Girassol Clinic. Siemens has supplied<br />
airport, office and hotel-security equipment<br />
and has also provided instrumentation for<br />
the Catumbela cement plant near Lobito.<br />
Siemens has become heavily involved<br />
in supporting education and training in<br />
Angola. “For Siemens, training engineers<br />
and managers is a core preoccupation in<br />
Angola and a contribution the company<br />
can make to the country,” says Angolanborn<br />
Jorge Tropa, chief executive of<br />
Siemens Angola.<br />
“It’s very challenging to be able to help<br />
Angola find sustainable answers for the<br />
future. It’s equally very gratifying for me<br />
to create job places and give development<br />
opportunities to people who by their<br />
work ensure their own and their families’<br />
sustenance,” he says.<br />
Siemens trains engineers and clients<br />
in the area of energy distribution,<br />
instrumentation and maintenance of<br />
turbines and electronic equipment, and<br />
to this end its ATEC training academy<br />
in Portugal has signed a co-operation<br />
agreement with Angola’s Integrated Centre<br />
for Technological Training (Cinfotec).<br />
Siemens also recently made an<br />
agreement with Angola’s Higher Polytechnic<br />
for Technology and Science (ISPTEC) for cooperation<br />
in developing human resources,<br />
projects and technologies in engineering,<br />
economics and management.<br />
Looking ahead<br />
Siemens is already highly involved in<br />
Brazil’s pre-salt oil deposits development,<br />
an area in which Angola is currently taking<br />
its first tentative steps.<br />
Chemtech, Siemens’ Brazilian specialist<br />
engineering subsidiary, has a leading role<br />
in contracts for engineering equipment<br />
employed in exploiting Brazil’s pre-salt<br />
deposits. The company’s training and<br />
experience in Brazil will enable Angola<br />
to prepare to meet the technological<br />
challenges of exploiting its own pre-salt oil.<br />
In order to facilitate this transfer of knowhow,<br />
Siemens offers work experience for<br />
Angolan engineers who want to attend<br />
the Siemens corporate academy in Brazil<br />
to improve their engineering skills and<br />
project management.<br />
Armed with this specialist training,<br />
Siemens and its Angolan engineers will be in<br />
a better position to win contracts and supply<br />
services for Angola’s pre-salt ventures.<br />
LSG – food for flight<br />
Angola’s flagship airline TAAG was mindful<br />
of German industry’s prompt and efficient<br />
delivery of quality products when it chose<br />
LSG Sky Chefs as its partner in producing<br />
meals for its passengers.<br />
The new company LSG, Sky Chefs<br />
TAAG Angola started operations in mid-<br />
July. Its owners are TAAG (35%), Germany’s<br />
number one carrier Lufthansa (40%),<br />
Angola Air Catering (20%) and Angolan<br />
airports authority Enana (5%).<br />
Initially the facility will serve just TAAG<br />
operations and Lufthansa, which has two<br />
flights a week to Frankfurt, but it will in<br />
future cater for other airlines.<br />
The $12 million unit at Luanda Airport<br />
employs 200 people and has the capacity<br />
to make between 6,000 and 7,000 meals a<br />
day. The company not only prepares the<br />
food but manages the whole logistics chain<br />
involved in supplying airline meals, from<br />
sourcing the food to packaging and placing<br />
it on board planes.<br />
Germany’s LSG Sky Chefs is one of the<br />
world’s largest airline-catering companies<br />
and last year produced about 492 million<br />
meals for more than 300 companies<br />
around the globe.<br />
Saving value<br />
Two German firms, Krones AG and<br />
Ferrostaal AG, are fulfilling a crucial need<br />
in converting Angolan raw materials into<br />
consumer goods.<br />
Krones AG boasts that a fifth of the<br />
world’s bottles has been filled, labelled or<br />
packaged on its machines. The company<br />
is responsible for the canning and bottling<br />
machinery at the Sequent Brewery, 35km<br />
outside Luanda.<br />
Voith<br />
German companies are likely to benefit from Angolan dam contracts<br />
Ferrostaal AG is responsible for the<br />
Giasop fruit and tomato-processing<br />
plant at N’gola Lombo, near Porto<br />
Amboim in Kwanza Sul. This flexible<br />
plant produces mango, passion fruit,<br />
guava and pineapple nectar and also<br />
tomato paste. Processing up to five<br />
tonnes an hour of mangoes or tomatoes,<br />
the plant can produce an hourly output<br />
of 5,000 gable-topped cartons.<br />
Storage and shipment of Angolan<br />
foodstuffs, especially fruit and vegetables,<br />
has been a bottleneck for the<br />
country’s farmers. Companies such as<br />
Ferrostaal provide an outlet for excess<br />
fresh produce that might otherwise have<br />
gone to waste. With the building of such<br />
packaging plants, farmers, especially<br />
small family holdings, can now step up<br />
production confident that their efforts<br />
will be rewarded. p<br />
DECEMBER 2012 13
14 SONANGOL UNIVERSO<br />
By Lula Ahrens<br />
With Luanda’s numerous international restaurants, Angola’s own varied and<br />
colourful cuisine is sometimes unjustly overlooked. In such a large and<br />
culturally-rich country, the discovery of its food habits will always be an<br />
adventure. Universo provides a taster<br />
The visitor’s first introduction to Angolan food is<br />
usually funge or pirão, bland but filling dishes<br />
that serve as the base of most meals and are often<br />
combined with fish, chicken or meat and sauce.<br />
Funge de bombo, more common in northern Angola, is<br />
a gelatinous, colourless paste made from corn or cassava<br />
flour (fubá). The yellowish pirão, similar to polenta, is<br />
made from cornflour and is more commonly eaten in the<br />
south. During weekends, Angolan families typically sit<br />
down to funge during the day and switch to grilled meat<br />
and fish at night. But, as with everything else in Angola,<br />
there is a lot more to discover.<br />
Adventurous, experimental connoisseurs might want<br />
to try Angolan specialities such as jinguinga – goat tripe<br />
and blood –from Malange province; the Kwanza Norte<br />
delicacy kifula – game meat served with boiled and toasted<br />
palm-tree grasshoppers – or mafuma, frog meat from<br />
Cunene. Those who prefer a safer start will love caldeirada<br />
de cabrito, goat-meat stew with rice, traditionally served<br />
on Angolan Independence Day (November 11), or kizaka,<br />
the finely mashed, spinach-like leaves of the manioc plant<br />
seasoned and mixed with ground peanuts.<br />
Try mukua, the traditional Angolan dried fruit from the<br />
country’s emblematic baobab tree, it is often used to make<br />
ice cream. Cocada amarela (yellow coconut pudding),<br />
made with sugar, grated coconut, egg yolks and ground<br />
cinnamon, is less exotic but also delicious.<br />
Historic overview<br />
Five centuries of Portuguese colonisation heavily<br />
influenced Angolan cuisine. In most restaurants,<br />
Portuguese dishes such as seafood rice or bacalhau com<br />
natas (cod with cream) will be popular and available.<br />
Brazilian and other European influences have also had<br />
their impact.<br />
The roots of Angola’s major ethnic groups can be traced<br />
in local cuisine. The coastal areas of Luanda, Benguela and<br />
Namibe are known for their variety of seafood. Fish stews<br />
including caldeirada de peixe and muzongue are made<br />
from whatever is available, and served with rice.<br />
Angolan fish stews such as calulu and mufete de<br />
cacusso are believed to be excellent hangover cures that<br />
work wonders even before the very first headache sets in!<br />
A standard, superb condiment at an Angolan lunch<br />
or dinner table is gindungu, a spicy sauce made of<br />
chilli pepper, garlic, onion and sometimes brandy. Not<br />
surprisingly, some believe that the sauce is an aphrodisiac.<br />
In central Angolan villages, you will find steamed or<br />
boiled green vegetables, peas, beans, cereals and game<br />
meat. Traditional game meats consumed in parts of Angola<br />
include veal, deer, wildebeest and warthog.<br />
Typical Angolan ingredients generally include flour,<br />
beans, rice, fish, chicken, egg, sweet potatoes, manioc<br />
(cassava), yams, tomatoes, onions, peanuts, okra and<br />
various spices such as chilli. Kizaka manioc plant leaves are<br />
CULTURE<br />
DECEMBER 2012 15
CULTURE<br />
mostly consumed as cooked greens. Many<br />
Angolans have chickens or goats running<br />
around their properties, but cabrito (goat)<br />
is only served on special occasions.<br />
Beautiful, fresh and flavoursome<br />
Angolan fruits, vegetables, potatoes and<br />
herbs are sold in local supermarkets such<br />
as Kero and Martal, as well as at open<br />
markets and in the street.<br />
In Luanda, you will often find that the<br />
simplest local restaurants serve the best<br />
food. On the southern side of Luanda’s long<br />
protective peninsula, the Ilha, as you drive<br />
from the city centre bay area, is the Chicala<br />
neighbourhood. Here you will find one of<br />
Luanda’s most well-known fish markets<br />
(the other is on the Samba highway) as well<br />
as two restaurants right next to each other.<br />
Some of Luanda’s best grilled fish<br />
is served right there for just $20 a head.<br />
Clients choose their freshly-caught fish<br />
from a bucket, after which it is gutted,<br />
cleaned and grilled. The whole fish is<br />
then served as a mufete de cacusso, with a<br />
delicious sauce made of chopped onions,<br />
baked bananas and sweet potatoes as<br />
well as beans in palm oil (see recipe on<br />
page 19).<br />
Cheers!<br />
Angola also produces a great variety of<br />
drinks. Many of them are made at home<br />
from bananas, potatoes and cassava skin.<br />
Kissangua, a popular drink in the south, is<br />
made from cornflour.<br />
Mongozo, which means ‘cheers!’ in<br />
the language of the Chokwe people, is a<br />
beer traditionally made from palm nuts.<br />
The Chokwe started brewing this beer<br />
before colonial times. The fact that it is<br />
exported to various countries, including<br />
Belgium, Europe’s beer mecca, says a lot<br />
about its quality.<br />
Angola also produces an impressive<br />
variety of homemade spirits such as the<br />
Kwanza Norte provincial specialty capatica<br />
made from bananas; the maize-based<br />
caporroto from Malange; cazi or caxipembe<br />
made from potato and cassava skin; cornbased<br />
kimbombo; and the palm wines<br />
maluva or ocisangua, made with palm-tree<br />
juice, a northern Angolan favourite.<br />
Gonguenha is made from toasted manioc<br />
flour, while ualende from the province of Bié<br />
can be made from sugarcane, sweet potato,<br />
corn or fruits. Other beverages include the<br />
homemade vodka kapuka, the honey-based<br />
Lula Ahrens<br />
ovingundu and homemade Angolan whisky,<br />
whiskey kota.<br />
Kissangua, a Southern Angolan<br />
traditional non-alcoholic drink made of<br />
cornflour, is sometimes used in indigenous<br />
healing rituals. Angola’s oldest and most<br />
celebrated commercial beer brand, of<br />
course, is Cuca, which is brewed in Luanda.<br />
Eka (brewed in Dondo, Kwanza Norte),<br />
N’gola (Lubango) and Nocal (Luanda) are<br />
also popular.<br />
Angolans and their<br />
favourite dishes<br />
Engineer Ana, 33, studied in London, UK,<br />
and moved back to Angola in 2004 to work<br />
for an international oil company. One of<br />
the things she enjoys most about being<br />
back in Luanda is the food.<br />
Walking past women selling vegetables<br />
on the street, she says: “With the decrease<br />
in landmine exposure and an increase<br />
in farming, you see more and more<br />
traditional leaves reappearing in the<br />
market. I’m trying out traditional dishes<br />
that I never even knew existed for instance,<br />
a particular mushroom – turtulho - cooked<br />
with peanuts. It’s from Malange.”<br />
Luanda boasts fancy Portuguese,<br />
Chinese, French, Brazilian, Cape Verdian,<br />
Ethiopian and even Japanese restaurants,<br />
and Ana visits them frequently. She<br />
remembers that during the civil war food<br />
was scarce. “There used to be a system<br />
of food coupons, with people standing in<br />
queues for hours. Even simple things like<br />
apples used to be a rarity.”<br />
Shipping co-ordinator Gildo, 33, was<br />
brought up in Angola. He lived in South<br />
Africa from 1996 until 2000, and then in<br />
Canada until 2004.<br />
“During the war, the food supply in<br />
Luanda was very limited,” he recalls. “We<br />
ate fried carapau, a mackerel-like fish, with<br />
rice, funge or bean soup, and a few canned<br />
foods. Dairy products, most other fish<br />
types and fruit and vegetables were hardly<br />
ever available.<br />
“The roads weren’t safe, so you couldn’t<br />
transport produce from the provinces to<br />
Luanda. Bread was a luxury. Hundreds<br />
of people used to queue for hours before<br />
their local shop opened. Some put down<br />
a stone, went back home and returned<br />
later. Others would move the stone ahead.<br />
People respected each other.”<br />
At home, Gildo and his family used to<br />
make omelettes with water and powdered<br />
eggs, which they bought in 50 kilo bags.<br />
Today, he enjoys a real omelette at Angolan<br />
restaurant Jango Veleiro, on the Ilha.<br />
“Aah... This is so much better than the<br />
dried version. You knew it was egg, but it<br />
was not the real deal,” he says.<br />
“Sweets and desserts were almost nonexistent,<br />
except during Christmas. But<br />
people made homemade sweets such as<br />
paracuca, which are sugar-covered peanuts<br />
in a paper cone. You still see these quite a<br />
lot, but they are no longer sold in paper.<br />
“Pirulito is melted, hardened sugar<br />
in paper with a little stick inside. You lick<br />
it like an ice cream. One of my favourite<br />
traditional sweets is what Angolans call<br />
‘goats’ droppings’. It is condensed milk,<br />
heated until brown, and turned into little<br />
balls,” he says.<br />
Ana also has sweet memories of<br />
her Luanda childhood. “We used to eat<br />
mukua ice cream (made from baobab<br />
fruit), paracuca and doce de coco (dry<br />
coconut pancake), all made and sold by<br />
grandma. Yummy.”<br />
Unlike most people, Gildo was not<br />
impressed by South African cuisine and<br />
missed Angolan flavours. “While we lived<br />
there, my sister used to cook Angolan food<br />
at home. Friends brought kizaka, dried fish<br />
and even fubá whenever they visited.” p<br />
16 SONANGOL UNIVERSO DECEMBER 2012 17<br />
Lula Ahrens<br />
Lula Ahrens<br />
Lula Ahrens<br />
Faraways<br />
CULTURE
CULTURE CULTURE<br />
“WE BUY ALL OUR FISH<br />
DAILY FROM FISHERMEN<br />
ON THE BEACH ACROSS<br />
THE ROAD, OR AT THE<br />
SAMBA NEARBY,”<br />
SAYS COOK MARIA LUÍSA KUEIROS<br />
18 SONANGOL UNIVERSO DECEMBER 2012 19<br />
Lula Ahrens<br />
Ingredients:<br />
250g cassava flour (fubá), 500ml water<br />
Traditional method:<br />
Boil a cooking pot of water and as soon<br />
as it is bubbling remove it from the flame<br />
and place the pot on the floor. Wrap a cloth<br />
around the base of the pot and hold steady<br />
with your feet. For perfect funge you need<br />
twice as much water as cassava flour. Add<br />
the flour to the hot water in one go and beat<br />
energetically with a 35cm (or longer) funge<br />
stick. The mixture thickens rapidly, so beat<br />
it thoroughly or you will end up with lumps<br />
rather than a smooth dough-like porridge.<br />
Modern method:<br />
Bring the water to the boil in a casserole dish.<br />
Meanwhile, beat the cassava flour into a bowl<br />
containing 500ml cold water until the mixture<br />
is smooth and creamy. Add this to the boiling<br />
water, whisking to combine the two. Stir until<br />
the mixture is smooth. Then add a lid and<br />
place in an oven pre-heated to 180°C. Bake<br />
for about 45 minutes or until the mixture has<br />
thickened to a dough-like consistency. This<br />
will leave you with perfectly smooth funge<br />
without all the hard work.<br />
Faraways<br />
Mufete de Cacusso (from Bengo province)<br />
Calulu, the alternative, is from Kwanza Sul<br />
Ingredients:<br />
Fresh river tilapia, raw onion, palm oil, beans,<br />
lemon, sweet potato, plantain and cassava<br />
Preparation method:<br />
Season the fish with salt and oil and then<br />
grill in an oven or over a charcoal fire.<br />
Making the sauce:<br />
Chop the onion finely; add lemon juice,<br />
water, salt, pepper and oil.<br />
Cooking palm oil beans:<br />
1 kg beans (approximately 2 lbs) 1 glass<br />
palm oil, salt and if desired onion and garlic.<br />
Cook the beans until tender. Add the palm<br />
oil and salt. Simmer until the oil is hot, and<br />
serve immediately with boiled sweet potato,<br />
plantain and cassava.<br />
Ingredients:<br />
1 chicken, 1 large onion, 2 cups of palm hash<br />
(by-product of palm oil), 4 cloves of garlic, ½ kg<br />
okra, tomatoes<br />
Preparation:<br />
Season the chicken with garlic, salt, black<br />
pepper, lemon or vinegar. Add the chopped<br />
onion, tomatoes and the palm hash. Place in<br />
oven. When the chicken is almost done, add the<br />
okra. When the okra is cooked, the muamba is<br />
ready to be served. Accompany it with palm oil<br />
beans, funge or rice.
LUANDA’S<br />
EMBRACE:<br />
THE BENGO REGION<br />
Bengo province and its contiguous areas<br />
completely embrace urban Luanda. Universo<br />
looks at the region’s role in relation to the capital<br />
and its impressive development prospects<br />
A<br />
ll major growing cities need<br />
surrounding wide open spaces<br />
not just for future expansion but<br />
also as a contrasting, clean-air<br />
escape for their inhabitants to enjoy in their<br />
leisure time. Bengo province and its former<br />
municipalities Icolo e Bengo and Kissama*<br />
provide the teeming capital Luanda<br />
with the relief of greenery and expansive<br />
beaches city dwellers often crave.<br />
The importance any city’s adjacent<br />
recreation area plays in the physical and<br />
mental wellbeing of its inhabitants cannot<br />
be underestimated. The quality of life for<br />
the 10 million people living in the largely<br />
treeless Brazilian mega-city of São Paulo is<br />
much improved by the access to pristine<br />
beaches and mountainous rainforest<br />
within an hour’s drive.<br />
Life, too, for the inhabitants of England’s<br />
grey, formerly smoky industrial capital<br />
Manchester, would have been intolerable<br />
without the easy journey to the clean air on<br />
the surrounding moorland hills.<br />
Bottlenecks uncorked<br />
Driving out of Luanda in any direction<br />
towards the Bengo region has often been<br />
a time-consuming affair owing to the city’s<br />
notorious traffic jams. These bottlenecks<br />
are gradually being cleared, thanks to the<br />
20 SONANGOL UNIVERSO DECEMBER 2012 21<br />
Brazuk Ltd<br />
Footnote<br />
* Luanda province formally absorbed Icolo e<br />
Bengo and Kissama in February “to address<br />
the need to ensure greater efficiency in<br />
the organisation and functioning of<br />
institutions and services in the face of<br />
urban growth”.<br />
PROVINCE
PROVINCE<br />
building of three major urban highways<br />
heading north, south and east. As Bengo,<br />
and the rest of Angola, becomes more<br />
easily reached, its economic and tourism<br />
potential is beginning to be realised.<br />
Highways along the coast south from<br />
Luanda towards Kissama and east towards<br />
Icolo e Bengo and the Kwanza valley are<br />
largely finished and are providing much-<br />
improved access to the region.<br />
However, the new highway heading<br />
north from Luanda towards Caxito, Bengo’s<br />
provincial capital, is only now approaching<br />
completion after a complicated rebuild.<br />
The vital northern coastal route takes<br />
the lion’s share of Luanda’s heavy, slowmoving<br />
port district traffic, carrying<br />
thousands of trucks each day to the rest of<br />
the country.<br />
The road building has been a tough task,<br />
hindered by difficult geology, unplanned<br />
land occupation in densely-populated<br />
districts and high flood risks, but this is now<br />
being overcome after a large-scale drainage<br />
scheme and the construction of a four-lane<br />
highway. Soon traffic jams will ease and<br />
Bengo will be under an hour’s drive from<br />
Luanda city centre.<br />
Infrastructure<br />
The Bengo region is reaping great benefits<br />
from the government’s hefty investment<br />
in new infrastructure over the past decade.<br />
Located just beyond the uncongested, fastmoving<br />
Luanda beltway, Bengo province,<br />
Icolo e Bengo and Kissama are wellconnected<br />
to each other and enjoy speedy<br />
routes to the industrial region of Viana and<br />
to the rest of Angola.<br />
This combination of good road<br />
connections and the availability of space<br />
was crucial to the decision to site two of<br />
Angola’s largest greenfield projects in<br />
Bengo; one is Luanda’s new international<br />
airport hub, the other is a new deepwater<br />
port. Luanda’s new airport will have<br />
capacity for 15 million passengers a year.<br />
Located 40km from the city centre, between<br />
Viana and Bom Jesus, the airport will have<br />
20 international and 11 domestic gates.<br />
Its two double runways will be capable of<br />
taking the Airbus 380, the world’s largest<br />
passenger airliner. Work began in 2008<br />
and completion of phase one is expected<br />
in December 2013.<br />
Super port<br />
The new port’s go-ahead was announced<br />
in November 2011 and detailed studies<br />
are underway. Victor Carvalho, general<br />
director of Angola’s Maritime and Port<br />
Institute, said the port, to be built just<br />
north of the busy fishing village of Barra do<br />
Dande, 45km north of Luanda, will be one<br />
of the largest in Africa.<br />
The new development will ease<br />
congestion at the old downtown Luanda<br />
port and give extra capacity to Angola’s<br />
rapidly expanding import-export trade.<br />
The existing port of Luanda has very limited<br />
space for expansion and its road access has<br />
suffered from congestion for decades.<br />
Initial plans envisage a long pier to<br />
be built on the north bank of the Dande<br />
River. This ‘arm’ will reach the deepest<br />
water and also shelter the new port from<br />
the predominantly southern sea current.<br />
The pier will enable the loading of up<br />
to 25 million tonnes a year of minerals,<br />
mainly iron ore from Kwanza Norte, and<br />
could also handle imported fertilisers.<br />
Other port areas will be dedicated to the<br />
loading and unloading of sea containers<br />
and general cargo, and for supporting<br />
Angola’s burgeoning offshore oil industry.<br />
Mineral resources<br />
Bengo’s geology and mineral resources<br />
have played a key role in Angola’s economy.<br />
The country’s modern oil industry dates<br />
from 1915 when the ‘black gold’ was first<br />
drilled near Dande.<br />
In more recent years, Bengo’s generous<br />
store of mineral wealth has provided large<br />
amounts of high-quality aggregates for<br />
roadbuilding and construction materials.<br />
Hundreds of trucks each day ply between<br />
Bengo’s quarries and gravel pits to supply<br />
Luanda’s myriad construction sites. Bengo<br />
has deposits of kaolin, chalk, asphalt,<br />
limestone, iron, feldspar, sulphur and mica.<br />
Industrial enterprises<br />
Bengo has a long history of industrial<br />
development. Before independence the<br />
province had sugar, cotton, plastics and<br />
soap industries. In more recent years new<br />
industries have chosen Bengo for their<br />
businesses, thanks not only to the rapid<br />
expansion of the oil industry but also to the<br />
Angolan government’s efforts to diversify<br />
the economy.<br />
The government’s Luanda-Bengo<br />
Special Economic Zone (ZEE) includes<br />
Icolo e Bengo (now in Luanda province)<br />
along with Dande, Nambuangongo and<br />
Ambriz in Bengo. The ZEE also includes<br />
Luanda’s main industrial focus, Viana, and<br />
Cacuaco, which borders Bengo.<br />
The ZEE was designed to boost the<br />
industrialisation of the region to the north<br />
and east of Luanda while absorbing labour<br />
(14,000 jobs) and drawing residents from<br />
the densely-populated conurbation to<br />
its periphery.<br />
The ZEE project, promoted by<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> industrial arm SIIND has a target<br />
of having 73 factories up and running by<br />
2015. Enterprises operating in the zone<br />
now number 17 and another nine units are<br />
expected to start up by the end of this year,<br />
reaching 53 units by 2014.<br />
Angoflex, which runs Bengo’s largest<br />
modern industry, started operations in 2005.<br />
The company, a <strong>Sonangol</strong> jointventure with<br />
France’s Technip, manufactures deepwater<br />
steel-tube umbilicals for the oil industry.<br />
Umbilicals are bundles of tubes, electric<br />
cables and optical fibres which remotely<br />
control and operate subsea equipment such<br />
as wellheads.<br />
Angoflex’s ‘spoolbase’, where umbilical<br />
pipelines are literally rolled on to spools,<br />
occupies a greenfield site just south of<br />
Dande. It is one of the most advanced<br />
industries of its kind in Africa. Around<br />
400 people (90 per cent Angolan) work on<br />
site welding and processing steel tubing<br />
into lengths of up to 3km. The tubes<br />
are laid out on a pier and then wound<br />
onto giant wheels mounted on ships.<br />
The jointed umbilical pipelines are later<br />
unwound and straightened at oil and gasproduction<br />
sites.<br />
Angoflex has the capacity to manufacture<br />
300km of umbilicals a year. The<br />
company already supplies BP and Total<br />
for blocks 31 and 17 and has completed<br />
export orders for Anadarko’s Jubilee project<br />
in Ghana.<br />
King banana<br />
The resurgence of Bengo’s once-thriving<br />
agricultural sector is leading to a ren-<br />
aissance in associated food-processing<br />
industries. The undoubted kingpin of this<br />
sector in Bengo is the banana. Afonso<br />
Pedro Canga, Angola’s Minister of<br />
Agriculture, says Angola is now selfsufficient<br />
in bananas.<br />
Bengo has a firm belief that its booming<br />
banana output will soon make it one of<br />
(Right) River Dande<br />
Key raw materials for Luanda’s construction industry<br />
22 SONANGOL UNIVERSO DECEMBER 2012 23<br />
Brazuk Ltd<br />
Brazuk Ltd<br />
PROVINCE
24 SONANGOL UNIVERSO<br />
Mark Clydesdale BZO<br />
Carlos Moco<br />
Angola’s leading exports. To promote its<br />
bananas, Caxito held its first Banana Fair<br />
in February. Exhibitors from the provinces<br />
of Kwanza Norte, Bengo, Benguela, Zaire,<br />
Uíge, Kwanza Sul, Malange and Luanda<br />
attended the event.<br />
Abrahão Pio dos Santos Gourgel,<br />
Angola’s Minister of Economy, said the<br />
country might start exporting bananas<br />
within the next two years, judging by<br />
the growth recorded of this product.<br />
Conditions, he said, had been created to<br />
ensure a continued increase of quality<br />
through planting systems and improved<br />
technical assistance.<br />
Agrolider, the Angolan agribusiness<br />
giant and Caxito Banana Fair prizewinner,<br />
forecasts it will produce 100,000 tonnes of<br />
the fruit in the 2012-13 growing season,<br />
compared with 54,000 tonnes in the<br />
previous harvest.<br />
Part of Agrolider’s crop comes from<br />
the 2,500-hectare Caxito Rega irrigated<br />
farming area, located in a former sugar<br />
plantation near provincial capital Caxito.<br />
Caxito Rega a government-managed<br />
initiative with 70 per cent state ownership<br />
was established in 2008.<br />
An existing irrigation system including<br />
23km of channels was renovated. Some<br />
1,600 hectares of Caxito Rega are cultivated<br />
by private companies and the rest by<br />
family farmers and individuals.<br />
A major step was taken to process<br />
produce at the site in August 2012 when<br />
a factory was opened, initially to process<br />
and pack dried bananas and tomato<br />
paste and pulp. Financed by Germany’s<br />
Deutsche Bank and installed by Spain’s<br />
Incatema Consulting, the plant has the<br />
capacity to process 2.5 tonnes of tomatoes<br />
and 750kg of dried bananas an hour. The<br />
165 staff operators were trained in Spain<br />
and Angola.<br />
The crucial role played by process<br />
plants such as these is that they absorb<br />
excess produce, especially from small<br />
farmers. This gives them an incentive to<br />
grow greater volumes and gain a more<br />
secure income, and also reduces wastage.<br />
A key component of the project was the<br />
arrival of electricity from the renovation of<br />
the Mabubas Dam in June 2012. The dam<br />
now has 25.6MW capacity compared to<br />
17.8MW two decades ago just before it<br />
stopped operating. Mabubas is initially<br />
also supplying Luanda and Caxito but will<br />
later extend power deliveries to the rest<br />
of Bengo. Until now the region had been<br />
using expensive diesel generators to make<br />
up for the energy shortage.<br />
The fertility of Bengo’s soils is<br />
impressive. Agrolider’s 350-hectare<br />
farming operations in Caxito also produce<br />
papaya, melons, water melons and<br />
eggplants. The company plans to grow<br />
dessert grapes, mangoes, oranges and<br />
tangerines at the site. Agrolider has another<br />
145-hectare plantation at Bom Jesus where<br />
it produces bananas, mangoes and grapes.<br />
Bengo’s attractiveness as a place to<br />
produce and process fruit has not been<br />
Angoflex spoolbase, Barra do Dande<br />
lost on foreign companies. Ghana’s<br />
ambassador visited the province recently<br />
and said Ghanaian company Blue<br />
Skies planned to produce mango and<br />
pineapple concentrate for its juice brand.<br />
The ambassador added that a Ghanaian<br />
company was also considering setting up<br />
a tyre plant in Bengo.<br />
Coca-Cola has recently built a $36<br />
million bottling plant at Bom Jesus<br />
alongside the Kwanza River. The factory<br />
not only has access to water but is well<br />
placed for accessing Angola’s main<br />
highways for its product distribution.<br />
Tourism expansion<br />
PROVINCE<br />
Another money-spinner shared by Bengo,<br />
Icolo e Bengo, and especially Kissama, is<br />
tourism. These areas can be reached easily<br />
by new highways heading south and east<br />
from the capital.<br />
Kissama is home to Angola’s bestknown<br />
and most accessible wildlife<br />
park, while Icolo e Bengo contains the<br />
historic birthplace of Agostinho Neto, the<br />
country’s first president, at Kaxicane near<br />
Catete, and the national Christian shrine<br />
of Muxima. Both sites are picturesquely<br />
located alongside a wide section of the<br />
slow-moving Kwanza River.<br />
Also on the river the church of Our<br />
Lady of Muxima, reputedly a site of<br />
miracles, dates from the 16th century and<br />
is the object of pilgrimages, especially in<br />
September, when the faithful camp around<br />
the shrine.<br />
Muxima township is also overlooked<br />
by an imposing Portuguese colonial fort<br />
which affords dramatic views over the<br />
rich lands along the banks of the Kwanza.<br />
The fort was the scene of fighting between<br />
Dutch and Portuguese troops in the 17th<br />
century when the two maritime powers<br />
fought each other around the globe, from<br />
Brazil to the Far East.<br />
Access to Muxima was recently<br />
enhanced by the building of a new<br />
highway which includes Angola’s longest<br />
bridge at Cabala. Better communications<br />
from Luanda and the rest of the country<br />
to Muxima facilitated the arrival of an<br />
estimated 500,000 people to the shrine this<br />
year. The Bishop of Viana compared the<br />
DECEMBER 2012 25
PROVINCE PROVINCE<br />
popularity of the shrine to other Catholic<br />
pilgrim sites such as Lourdes in France,<br />
Fátima in Portugal and Aparecida in Brazil.<br />
Travelling north from Luanda, visitors<br />
enter Bengo province by crossing the Bengo<br />
River. The visitor’s first impression of<br />
Bengo is of its greenery, sparse population<br />
and densely-reeded lagoons which contrast<br />
sharply with nearby urban Luanda.<br />
The area around the reedy marshland<br />
lake of Panguila adjacent to the Bengo<br />
River boasts a population of black storks.<br />
These impressive birds use their wings as<br />
a cloak to shade their eyes while hunting<br />
their prey in the wetlands. Kingfishers and<br />
a wealth of other birds are easily spotted<br />
in the area, making it one of the most<br />
rewarding haunts for ornithologists in the<br />
Luanda region.<br />
Bengo’s coastline and lakes provide<br />
a variety of fish for tourists to savour. In<br />
Kissama, the area around Cabo Ledo is<br />
renowned for its lobster.<br />
Regeneration<br />
Kissama National Park is a favourite tourist<br />
destination for Angolans and is especially<br />
popular among expatriates seeking a taste<br />
of the ‘real Africa’. The 10,000-squarekilometre<br />
park with a 120km coastline<br />
blessed with deserted beaches and a sea<br />
heaving with fish and crustaceans, has<br />
experienced a remarkable revival in its<br />
animal populations over the past 12 years<br />
Brazuk Ltd<br />
The church of Our Lady of<br />
Muxima, reputedly a site<br />
of miracles, dates from the<br />
16th century and is the object<br />
of pilgrimages<br />
since President José Eduardo dos Santos<br />
reopened it.<br />
Three decades of poaching had<br />
decimated its wildlife stock, but today<br />
tourists can again visit the park with a<br />
very good chance of seeing several species<br />
of animals.<br />
The park owes its turnaround to<br />
‘Operation Noah’s Ark’. This project involved<br />
reorganising the park administration and<br />
protecting the animal population by a<br />
more professional group of rangers. It also<br />
meant installing a 21km fence to separate<br />
a small special-conservation area in the<br />
extreme north of the park and bringing in<br />
excess numbers of animals from Botswana<br />
and South Africa. The conservation area<br />
is centred on the 50-bed tourist camp and<br />
restaurant at Caua.<br />
The first batches of animals included 35<br />
elephants, eight elands, 12 wildebeests and<br />
12 kudus. Later these were joined by dozens<br />
of giraffes, zebras and hundreds of ostriches.<br />
Today all these populations are recovering<br />
fast and attracting more park visitors.<br />
The park also boasts a park-ranger<br />
training school, suggested by the German<br />
aid organisation GTZ. This helped train<br />
former soldiers and provide a civilian career<br />
opportunity. Around 140 rangers have been<br />
trained to date with assistance from the<br />
South African Wildlife College.<br />
An outstanding role in Kissama’s<br />
revival was played by former South African<br />
soldier turned park director Roland<br />
Goetz over a ten-year period. Angolan<br />
Miguel Savituma, who underwent onthe-job<br />
training as Goetz’s deputy and<br />
also attended courses abroad has now<br />
succeeded him.<br />
Future plans involve extending the<br />
special conservation area, securing it<br />
against poachers and reintroducing more<br />
wildlife such as roan and red buffalo. p<br />
Angola’s longest bridge – Cabala<br />
Muxima on the Kwanza Kissama’s rich red soils<br />
Bengo’s iconic black stork<br />
26 SONANGOL UNIVERSO DECEMBER 2012 27<br />
Brazuk Ltd<br />
Brazuk Ltd<br />
Teunis Bakker<br />
Brazuk Ltd
FINANCE FINANCE<br />
PROLONGING<br />
ANGOLA’S OIL<br />
BENEFITS<br />
Angola has launched a sovereign wealth fund and thus joined a<br />
prestigious list of resource-rich nations, which includes Norway and<br />
the United Arab Emirates. Universo reports k<br />
28 SONANGOL UNIVERSO<br />
Verkhovynets Taras<br />
A<br />
ngola has announced the setting up<br />
of a sovereign wealth fund. Fundo<br />
Soberano de Angola (FSDEA) will<br />
have a starting pot of $5 billion<br />
which will be channelled into a mix of domestic<br />
and international investments, with a focus on<br />
emerging Asian economies.<br />
The idea behind the fund is to use Angola’s<br />
oil revenues prudently, to ensure that the<br />
wealth of today lasts longer so that the country<br />
can enjoy the legacy benefits of its oil even<br />
when the crude has stopped flowing.<br />
By creating the FSDEA, Angola will also<br />
have a secondary buffer of capital reserves<br />
should the price of oil fall rapidly and create<br />
liquidity pressures on the economy as it did<br />
in 2009.<br />
The public unveiling of FSDEA in October<br />
is the culmination of four years of planning after<br />
President José Eduardo dos Santos first showed<br />
an interest in creating a sovereign wealth fund<br />
back in 2008.<br />
With headquarters in Luanda, the fund<br />
will manage a diverse investment portfolio<br />
made up of global private and public stocks,<br />
bonds, foreign currencies, financial derivatives,<br />
commodities, treasury bills and property and<br />
infrastructure funds.<br />
The sovereign wealth fund will be topped<br />
up on a monthly basis by an amount equivalent<br />
to the revenue from 100,000 barrels of oil per<br />
day. FSDEA representatives say it will publish<br />
all its accounts so that people can monitor the<br />
money flow.<br />
Switzerland-based Quantum Global<br />
Investment Management, which already works<br />
with Banco Nacional de Angola, Angola’s central<br />
bank, has been appointed as the initial liquidasset<br />
manager, although more financial houses<br />
are expected to come on board in due course.<br />
The FSDEA’s board of directors is made<br />
up of its chairman Armando Manuel, who<br />
is also Secretary for Economic Affairs in the<br />
Angolan government, and two other members:<br />
José Filomeno de Sousa dos Santos, a former<br />
board member at Banco Kwanza Invest, and<br />
Hugo Miguel Évora Gonçalves, previously of<br />
Standard Bank.<br />
“Angola is rich in natural resources, but<br />
we understand that these are finite, so it is<br />
imperative that the wealth they generate is used<br />
to support the country’s social and economic<br />
development,” said Manuel.<br />
Photoatelier<br />
Armando Manuel<br />
“Angola is rich in natural<br />
resources, but we<br />
understand that these are<br />
finite, so it is imperative that<br />
the wealth they generate<br />
is used to support the<br />
country’s social and<br />
economic development”<br />
– Armando Manuel<br />
DECEMBER 2012 29
FINANCE FINANCE<br />
“As an investment institution operating<br />
as a sovereign wealth fund, the FSDEA seeks<br />
to secure long-term sustainable financial<br />
returns that will positively impact the lives of<br />
the people of Angola now and in the future.”<br />
José Filomeno de Sousa dos Santos,<br />
who attended the FSDEA’s launch, which<br />
received international media coverage<br />
from outlets including the New York Times<br />
and CNN, said: “The launch of the FSDEA<br />
is a historic moment for Angola, as the<br />
government continues to transform and grow<br />
the country’s economy.<br />
“The FSDEA recognises that there<br />
are still considerable challenges facing the<br />
country. However, we are committed to<br />
promoting social and economic development<br />
by investing in projects that create<br />
opportunities which will positively impact<br />
the lives of all Angolans today and generate<br />
wealth for future generations.”<br />
He added, in a subsequent interview,<br />
that the FSDEA would be paying particular<br />
attention to emerging economies, especially<br />
those in Asia. “We will be looking at emerging<br />
economies as a very interesting target<br />
because we believe that returns there are<br />
very attractive. Going forward, in terms of<br />
investments, we would look to always hire<br />
the best investment capacity possible, and<br />
Asia has a lot of potential.”<br />
News of the FSDEA’s launch has<br />
excited global markets and boosted Angola’s<br />
already growing reputation as an African<br />
economic powerhouse.<br />
Africa sovereign wealth funds<br />
In a statement, global ratings agency<br />
Fitch, which in May upgraded Angola from<br />
BB- to BB+, said: “Angola’s decision to set up<br />
a sovereign wealth fund is positive news. It<br />
reaffirms our view that government policies<br />
are reducing the economy’s exposure to<br />
movements in the oil price, and laying a<br />
foundation for sustainable growth.”<br />
The agency noted that the FSDEA could<br />
contribute to a further upgrade if it were<br />
coupled with a longer track record of prudent<br />
fiscal and monetary policy management, and<br />
that if the fund led to better management and<br />
utilisation of windfall oil revenues it could<br />
boost long-term GDP growth.<br />
Although President dos Santos will<br />
be ultimately responsible for deciding<br />
investment policies, the FSDEA’s board is fully<br />
autonomous and will oversee its own activities.<br />
The FSDEA will also have a separate<br />
fiscal council to ensure that all laws and<br />
regulations are being followed and will be<br />
subject to annual and independent audits.<br />
For further oversight, a four-member<br />
advisory board will be set up consisting of the<br />
Minister of Finance, Carlos Alberto Lopes,<br />
the Minister of Economy, Abrahão Pio dos<br />
Santos Gourgel, the Minister of Planning and<br />
Territorial Development, Job Graça, and the<br />
governor of Banco Nacional de Angola, José<br />
de Lima Massano.<br />
Transparency has been placed at<br />
the heart of the FSDEA, which will be run<br />
according to the internationally-recognised<br />
Santiago Principles, a code of conduct<br />
developed by the International Working<br />
Group of Sovereign Wealth Funds.<br />
The principles are based on maintaining<br />
a stable global financial system and the free<br />
flow of capital and investment; compliance<br />
with applicable regulatory and disclosure<br />
requirements in the countries where<br />
investments are made; making investments<br />
based on return-related considerations; and<br />
ensuring a sound governance structure that<br />
provides for adequate operational controls,<br />
risk management and accountability.<br />
As well as investing outside Angola in<br />
high-return long-yield funds, the FSDEA<br />
will also spend money closer to home<br />
to help support the country’s ongoing<br />
infrastructure needs in areas such as<br />
agriculture, water, power generation<br />
and transport.<br />
The FSDEA has also identified the need<br />
to help promote Angola as a destination for<br />
overseas investment. At the sovereign wealth<br />
fund’s launch, it was announced there would<br />
be a focus on the hospitality sector in a bid to<br />
create more hotel capacity and improve the<br />
skills of local labour in the industry.<br />
There is a longer-term plan to create an<br />
Angolan hotel school which the FSDEA hopes<br />
will one day become the leading hospitality<br />
establishment on the African continent.<br />
For more information about the FSDEA go to<br />
www.fundosoberano.ao p<br />
Country Sovereign wealth fund name Assets $bn Inception Origin<br />
Libya Libyan Investment Authority 65.0 2006 <strong>Oil</strong><br />
Algeria Revenue Regulation Fund 56.7 2000 <strong>Oil</strong><br />
Botswana Pula Fund 6.9 1994 Diamonds & minerals<br />
Nigeria Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority 1.0 2011 <strong>Oil</strong><br />
Gabon Gabon Sovereign Wealth Fund 0.4 1998 <strong>Oil</strong><br />
Mauritania National Fund for Hydrocarbon Reserves 0.3 2006 <strong>Oil</strong> & gas<br />
Equatorial Guinea Fund for Future Generations 0.08 2002 <strong>Oil</strong><br />
Source: SWF Institute<br />
30 SONANGOL UNIVERSO<br />
04<br />
18<br />
Other leading sovereign wealth funds<br />
12<br />
07<br />
10<br />
13<br />
06<br />
03<br />
01 Australia ....................................................................................................The Future Fund<br />
02 Azerbaijan .................................................. State <strong>Oil</strong> Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan<br />
03 Botswana .............................................................................................................Pula Fund<br />
04 Canada .................................................................... Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund<br />
05 China ................................................................................. China Investment Corporation<br />
06 Gabon ................................................................................ Gabon Sovereign Wealth Fund<br />
07 Equatorial Guinea .................................................................Fund for Future Generations<br />
08 Korea ................................................................................. Korea Investment Corporation<br />
09 Kuwait .................................................................................. Kuwait Investment Authority<br />
10 Libya ...................................................................................... Libyan Investment Authority<br />
11 New Zealand .............................................................New Zealand Superannuation Fund<br />
12 Nigeria ..............................................................Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority<br />
13 Norway ........................................................................ Government Pension Fund-Global<br />
14 Qatar ........................................................................................Qatar Investment Authority<br />
15 East Timor ............................................................................Timor-Leste Petroleum Fund<br />
16 Singapore ...................................................................................Temasek Holding Pte Ltd<br />
17 United Arab Emirates .....................................................Abu Dhabi Investment Authority<br />
18 United States ............................................................................... Alaska Permanent Fund<br />
09<br />
02<br />
14<br />
17<br />
05<br />
16<br />
15<br />
01<br />
08<br />
11<br />
DECEMBER 2012 31
KINGDOM<br />
OF THE WILD<br />
ENVIRONMENT Paul Banton<br />
FRONTIERS<br />
One of the largest conservation areas in the world is taking shape<br />
in Angola’s southeastern region. Universo eyes the developments<br />
By Lula Ahrens<br />
Wildebeest make a leap of faith<br />
32 SONANGOL UNIVERSO DECEMBER 2012 33
ENVIRONMENT<br />
The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier<br />
Conservation Area<br />
(Kaza) is an extraordinary<br />
intergovernmental effort to<br />
create a wildlife park across huge swathes<br />
of land where Angola, Botswana, Namibia,<br />
Zambia and Zimbabwe converge.<br />
The aim is to protect the biodiversity<br />
and culture in this corner of southern<br />
Africa without regard to borders.<br />
Angola owns the second-biggest slice<br />
of the proposed protected area, which at<br />
444,000sq km is the size of Sweden. Kaza is<br />
named after the two largest river systems<br />
that drain the region, the Okavango<br />
and Zambezi. The area is home to the<br />
world’s biggest elephant population and a<br />
wealth of other endangered plant and<br />
animal species.<br />
The project is not only about the welfare<br />
of the flora and fauna. Kaza member<br />
countries are expecting an explosion of<br />
tourism in the area, which will hopefully<br />
boost socio-economic development and<br />
conserve local cultures.<br />
Angola is responsible for the second-<br />
largest section of the area, some<br />
90,000sq km. This covers the Luiana Partial<br />
Reserve, the Mavinga Partial Reserve, and<br />
the Longa-Mavinga, Luengue, Luiana and<br />
Mucusso hunting areas.<br />
Kuando Kubango province forms the<br />
project’s starting point in Angola. From<br />
there, it crosses the border to Botswana<br />
and continues towards Botswana’s<br />
Okavango Delta.<br />
“The vast wilderness of Angola’s Luiana<br />
and Luenge national parks and adjacent<br />
areas with near-pristine wildlife habitats<br />
offers unexploited tourism development<br />
potential,” Kaza director Dr Victor<br />
Siamudaala told Universo when asked to<br />
name Angola’s most vital contribution to<br />
the project, adding that “Angola’s unique<br />
culture and cuisine, too, are particularly<br />
attractive to tourists.”<br />
Official birth<br />
The first steps of the Kaza project date<br />
back to the 1990s, with the establishment<br />
of the Okavango Upper Zambezi Tourism<br />
Initiative funded through the South African<br />
Development Community. The project<br />
failed to take off and was succeeded by<br />
others, until the foundation stone of the<br />
current Kaza scheme was laid in December<br />
2006 when the five member countries<br />
signed a memorandum of understanding.<br />
Its formal establishment took place in<br />
August 2011 when the leaders of Angola,<br />
Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe<br />
signed the Kaza Treaty in Luanda, at the<br />
closing ceremony of the 31st SADC (Southern<br />
African Development Community) Summit.<br />
“For five countries to come together<br />
and decide to mutually conserve<br />
their natural resources in a<br />
sustainable way and benefit local<br />
communities and eventually reduce<br />
rural poverty is truly admirable”<br />
– Dr Victor Siamudaala<br />
Kaza was officially launched in March<br />
2012 at the Namibian town of Katima<br />
Mulilo. The project is jointly administered<br />
by the governments of the five partner<br />
countries and is supported by various<br />
international donors. The co-ordinating<br />
role of Kaza rotates biannually between<br />
the five nations.<br />
“For five countries to come together<br />
and decide to mutually conserve their<br />
natural resources in a sustainable way and<br />
benefit local communities and eventually<br />
reduce rural poverty is truly admirable,”<br />
said Dr Siamudaala.<br />
Elephants<br />
One of the most spectacular aspects of<br />
the Kaza project is that it will harbour<br />
the largest contiguous population of the<br />
African elephant (around 250,000) on the<br />
continent. Southern Africa’s elephants<br />
face two important issues: poaching –<br />
they are much sought after for their ivory<br />
– and overpopulation in areas where they<br />
infringe on farmland.<br />
Botswana drew up a plan in 1990, which<br />
put the maximum number of elephants<br />
the country could handle at 60,000. But<br />
because culling was controversial and<br />
Botswana wanted to avoid international<br />
condemnation, it allowed numbers to grow.<br />
There are now some 150,000 elephants<br />
in Botswana, which are in dire need of<br />
an alternative habitat. Zambia, and in<br />
particular the Angolan province of Kuando<br />
Kubango, offer a way of diluting these<br />
populations through Kaza ‘transfrontier<br />
corridors’ or protected tracts of land.<br />
Angola’s 199,049sq km Kuando<br />
Kubango province will make up a major<br />
portion of the reserve. After four decades<br />
of independence and civil war, which<br />
ended in 2002, it had only around 140,000<br />
people living there. The conflict took a<br />
heavy toll on the province’s wildlife, as<br />
elephant ivory was sold to buy weapons<br />
and other wild animals served as food<br />
for soldiers and farmers. Now Kaza offers<br />
Kuando Kubango a promising new future.<br />
With its continuing landmine clearance<br />
campaigns, the province could provide a<br />
vast new home for Botswana’s superfluous<br />
elephant population.<br />
34 SONANGOL UNIVERSO DECEMBER 2012 35<br />
Mark Clydesdale BZO<br />
Simon Greig<br />
wollemipine<br />
Eland antelope, a native of the Okavango region
ENVIRONMENT<br />
The Khoisan<br />
Kuando Kubango province is also home to<br />
Angola’s Khoisan community, descendants<br />
of Sub-Saharan Africa’s first inhabitants,<br />
often referred to as ‘Bushmen.’ They offer<br />
a prime example of the cultural wealth the<br />
Kaza area holds.<br />
Right in the middle of the Namibe<br />
Desert lies a large area with Khoisan cave<br />
paintings, some of which can be traced<br />
back to the Stone Age. They are considered<br />
among Angola’s most beautiful prehistoric<br />
collections of cave art.<br />
Sadly, the Khoisan are at risk of<br />
extinction. Only a few populations still<br />
survive in southwest Africa. Recent<br />
estimates show that of the 100,000 Khoisan<br />
left on the African continent, barely 5,000<br />
live in southern Angola.<br />
In Angola the Khoisan are supported<br />
by the Association for Environmental<br />
Conservation and Integrated Development<br />
(Acadir) and are funded by USAID, the US<br />
Agency for International Development,<br />
which focuses on family income, water<br />
supply and the sustainable management<br />
of natural resources.<br />
Acadir projects cover the municipalities<br />
of Cuangar, Calai, Dirico, Menongue<br />
and Savate in Kuando Kubango. The<br />
organisation aims to improve the often<br />
marginalised Khoisan communities’<br />
access to housing, drinking water,<br />
education and legal documentation as well<br />
as tackling poaching and deforestation. At<br />
least 725 Koishan have reportedly already<br />
benefited from these efforts through<br />
donations of cattle, ploughs and seeds.<br />
More information<br />
Cultural treasures<br />
The Khoisan are not the only community<br />
receiving ongoing support. It is estimated<br />
that up to 2.5 million people live within<br />
the Kaza area. The partner countries want<br />
these communities to benefit directly from<br />
the Kaza initiative, even if the number one<br />
objective is saving the plant and wildlife.<br />
“The Kaza area is not aimed<br />
at exploiting any given culture or<br />
community,” said Dr Siamudaala. Quite<br />
the contrary: “It provides a platform for<br />
communities to benefit from tourism.”<br />
Many other communities in the Kaza<br />
area, apart from the Khoisan, tend to<br />
be vulnerable, suffering higher levels of<br />
poverty, illiteracy, underdevelopment<br />
and declining agricultural productivity.<br />
As a result, they inadvertently place a<br />
great strain on the sustainability of their<br />
natural resources.<br />
Kaza efforts focus on ending<br />
community conflicts with wild animals,<br />
which sometimes damage cultivated land<br />
during their migrations, resulting in loss<br />
of livelihoods and sometimes even in the<br />
killing of humans.<br />
According to Kaza, tourist development<br />
can provide these communities with<br />
alternative sources of income. Kaza acts<br />
as a watchdog for community rights and<br />
management of natural resources and<br />
their agreements with the private sector.<br />
Kaza also oversees their generation of<br />
income from development projects. All of<br />
this helps the partner countries’ efforts in<br />
reaching their United Nations Millennium<br />
Development Goals.<br />
If you would like more visual information on what the Kaza project entails, watch the award-winning documentary<br />
Creating a Climate for Change. This 35-minute film on the impact of climate change in southern Africa was cofunded<br />
by the Open Society Initiative for southern Africa and first shown at the UN Convention on Climate Change<br />
in Durban in 2011. It illustrates how locally-driven solutions can be devised and successfully implemented in<br />
some of the worst affected areas, and devotes quite some time to the Kaza area project.<br />
www.kavangozambezi.org<br />
Kaza efforts focus on ending<br />
community conflicts with wild animals,<br />
which sometimes damage cultivated<br />
land during their migrations, resulting in<br />
loss of livelihoods and sometimes<br />
even in the killing of humans<br />
Okavango-Zambezi: home to the nomadic Khoisan<br />
36 SONANGOL UNIVERSO DECEMBER 2012 37<br />
Eric Lafforgue
Leslie Crookes<br />
ENVIRONMENT ENVIRONMENT<br />
An African leopard lounges in a tree<br />
Portrait of a waterbuck A hippo at sunset<br />
Gerrit de Vries<br />
Natural wealth<br />
The total Kaza area will include 36 national<br />
parks, game reserves and community<br />
conservation areas. It boasts stunning tourist<br />
attractions such as the Okavango Delta<br />
in Botswana, which is the largest Ramsar<br />
(wetland of international importance) site<br />
in the world.<br />
It is home to the Victoria Falls on the<br />
Zambezi River between Zimbabwe and<br />
Zambia, a UNESCO World Heritage site<br />
and one of the seven natural wonders of<br />
the world. Kaza encompasses one of the<br />
world’s largest salt flats, the Makgadikgadi<br />
Pans in Botswana, covering an area<br />
almost the size of Portugal, in the midst<br />
of desert, and Lake Kariba in Zambia and<br />
Zimbabwe, the world’s largest artificial<br />
lake. In addition, the region comprises<br />
various types of woodland, grassland and<br />
wetlands, supporting its high biodiversity.<br />
Elephants are not the only ones who<br />
will profit from the wildlife corridors. Kaza<br />
is home to Africa’s charismatic Big Five:<br />
elephant, leopard, rhino, buffalo and lion.<br />
Other rare, vulnerable and endangered<br />
wildlife species in the area include the<br />
cheetah, black rhino, African wild dog,<br />
sable and roan antelope, puku, oribi,<br />
honey badger and wattled crane.<br />
The cape vulture, major populations<br />
of buffalo, hippo, lechwe, eland, zebra,<br />
wildebeest, waterbuck and bushbuck can<br />
also be spotted in the area, as can the<br />
sitatunga, hunting dog, spotted hyena, and<br />
numerous other southern African animal<br />
species. White rhino may be found in small<br />
numbers in the Okavango Delta area.<br />
Kaza also boasts at least 3,000 plant<br />
species, 600 southern African bird species,<br />
2,645 flora species, 128 species of reptiles, 50<br />
species of amphibians, almost 300 butterfly<br />
species and a great variety of sea mammals.<br />
Tourist magnet<br />
Not surprisingly, given Okavango-<br />
Zambezi’s many assets, the region is set to<br />
be southern Africa’s top tourist destination.<br />
Ecotourists can indulge in discovering the<br />
region’s plants, trees and wildlife. Kaza’s<br />
tremendous diversity of ethnic groups<br />
along with the promotion of indigenous<br />
knowledge, and the establishment of<br />
cultural villages and national heritage<br />
sites, will no doubt entice cultural tourists<br />
as well.<br />
Numerous lodges and camping sites<br />
already exist across Kaza, mostly along the<br />
Okavango and Zambezi rivers. New tourist<br />
accommodation will be built, especially<br />
in south-east Angola (including Kuando<br />
Kubango) and western Zambia. The<br />
Angolan Ministry of Hotels and Tourism<br />
has already given the go-ahead for<br />
accommodation work in Kuando Kubango.<br />
Dr Siamudaala told Universo that<br />
the Kaza countries are streamlining their<br />
visa requirements for the region. “Where<br />
possible, they will develop a tourist visa<br />
system limited to the Kaza area in order to<br />
allow for seamless travel of tourists within<br />
the area,” he said. p<br />
38 SONANGOL UNIVERSO DECEMBER 2012 39<br />
EcoPrint<br />
Okavango delta<br />
Jiri Haureljuk
Henrique Malungo, courtesy of BP Angola<br />
40 SONANGOL UNIVERSO<br />
GOLD<br />
PARALYMPICS TEAM STRIKES<br />
Members of Angola’s Paralympics squad received a warm welcome in<br />
Luanda on their return from London 2012. Team talisman José Armando<br />
Sayovo stunned the competition with a majestic display<br />
A<br />
ngola’s national Paralympics<br />
team returned to Luanda<br />
from the 2012 Paralympics<br />
in September, bringing the<br />
nation the present of a memorable gold<br />
medal win by charismatic blind athlete<br />
José Armando Sayovo.<br />
Sayovo won gold in the 400-metre<br />
distance race and followed this up with<br />
a bronze medal in the 200 metres for<br />
visually-impaired athletes (class T11)<br />
in the Games held in London between<br />
August 29 and September 9. Remarkably,<br />
he also narrowly missed out on another<br />
bronze medal in the 100 metres, having<br />
to settle for fourth place.<br />
“The Olympics are the highest point<br />
in the career of an athlete. Fortunately I<br />
reached this point in the competition,”<br />
said Sayovo.<br />
The other runners making up Angola’s<br />
Paralympic contingent – Octávio dos<br />
Santos, Esperança Gicasso and Maria da<br />
Silva – fell short of medal places but gave<br />
good accounts of themselves, surpassing<br />
personal records during the competition.<br />
Sayovo told the Angolan press that a<br />
memorable highlight of the trip was the<br />
support he received from the Angolan<br />
fans when he entered the Olympic<br />
Stadium in London.<br />
Track record<br />
Sayovo’s triumph was the athlete’s<br />
third consecutive appearance at<br />
the Games. His total tally is now<br />
eight medals and record times in<br />
the 100, 200 and 400 metres won<br />
during the last three Paralympics.<br />
What makes Sayovo’s achievement<br />
in London even more impressive<br />
is the fact that the man from<br />
Catabola, Bié province, is now a<br />
40-year old veteran athlete.<br />
Sayovo currently leads the world<br />
Paralympic ranking in the 200 metres and<br />
400 metres for visually-impaired athletes,<br />
according to the International Paralympic<br />
Committee. In the 400-metres category,<br />
Sayovo tops the list of 30 athletes with a<br />
time of 50.75 seconds, while he shares a<br />
time of 22.84 seconds with Brazil’s Daniel<br />
Silva in the 200 metres.<br />
Sayovo was awarded a prize of<br />
two million kwanzas ($20,951) by the<br />
Angolan Ministry of Youth and Sport in<br />
recognition of his feat. Sports Minister<br />
Gonçalves Manuel Muandumba said<br />
Sayovo was one of Angola’s greatest<br />
sportsmen and a symbol of Angolan sport<br />
who continued to raise the country and<br />
its flag beyond its borders.<br />
Deputy Sports Minister Albino José<br />
da Conceição said that Paralympic sport<br />
was a living example of the government’s<br />
investment in its social-inclusion policy.<br />
José Sayovo “makes us feel citizens of the<br />
world with his achievements”, he added.<br />
Sayovo’s future<br />
SPORT<br />
The Angolan Paralympic Committee has<br />
put forward Sayovo’s name to the United<br />
Nations for a possible role as a ‘good-will<br />
ambassador’ in promoting the cause of<br />
the disabled.<br />
The next Paralympic Games will be<br />
held in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. The big<br />
question for Angolans is: will Sayovo be<br />
there? Nobody is betting against another<br />
Sayovo appearance at the age of 44; after<br />
all, he surprised almost everyone by his<br />
success this time around. p<br />
Henrique Malungo, courtesy of BP Angola<br />
Henrique Malungo, courtesy of BP Angola<br />
DECEMBER 2012 41
<strong>Sonangol</strong> news briefing <strong>Sonangol</strong> news briefing<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> and<br />
Maersk oil find<br />
■ <strong>Sonangol</strong> E.P. and partner Maersk <strong>Oil</strong> Angola announced another oil discovery<br />
in Block 16 (Cabinda) in early October. The deepwater Caporolo-1 well showed<br />
a flow of up to 3,000 barrels per day in tests. “It’s the second discovery made in<br />
this block after Chissonga-1. The Caporolo-1 well was drilled at a sea depth of<br />
1,235 metres and reached a total depth of 5,508 metres,” said <strong>Sonangol</strong>. Maersk<br />
is the block operator and has a 65% stake, while <strong>Sonangol</strong> P&P owns 20% and<br />
Brazil’s Odebrecht <strong>Oil</strong> & Gas Angola has the remaining 15%. <strong>Sonangol</strong> E.P. is the<br />
concession holder.<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> Starfish<br />
returns Brazil block<br />
■ <strong>Sonangol</strong> Starfish <strong>Oil</strong> & Gas and OGX Petróleo have returned their<br />
licences to drill in two shallow offshore blocks to Brazil’s National<br />
Petroleum Agency (ANP). The blocks in the Santos Basin were<br />
deemed not as productive as the ones in deeper water. <strong>Sonangol</strong><br />
Starfish returned its stake in Block BM-S-60 after a long drilling<br />
campaign that proved three times more expensive than estimated.<br />
<strong>Oil</strong> and gas were found but not in commercial quantities. <strong>Sonangol</strong><br />
Starfish now aims to concentrate its efforts in north-east Brazil in<br />
the Potiguar (Rio Grande do Norte) and Recôncavo (Bahia) basins,<br />
according to Brazilian oil website Macaé Offshore.<br />
James Jones Jr<br />
ZEE latest<br />
■ Two more industrial units have been<br />
added to the <strong>Sonangol</strong>-supported special<br />
economic zone (ZEE) in the Viana-Bengo.<br />
One unit, Indústria de Ferragens Lda, will<br />
manufacture 95,000 security locks of four<br />
different types and employ 102 workers.<br />
The second unit will produce galvanised<br />
products and have a staff of 29.<br />
The total number of enterprises now<br />
operating in the zone stands at 17 with<br />
a total workforce of 3,000. Another nine<br />
units are expected to start up by the end<br />
of this year. The scheme’s target is to<br />
have 53 units fully operational by 2014.<br />
New fuel depot at<br />
Kuando Kubango<br />
■ <strong>Oil</strong> Minister José Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos inaugurated<br />
a new <strong>Sonangol</strong> fuel depot in Kuando Kubango province on<br />
August 25. He was accompanied by <strong>Sonangol</strong> E.P. board<br />
president Francisco Maria and other board members.<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong>’s latest addition to its supply network will benefit<br />
provincial capital Menongue and other municipalities in the<br />
fast-developing region of south-east Angola.<br />
The fuel depot has storage capacity of 4,500 cubic metres,<br />
made up of 2,000m 3 of diesel, 1,000m 3 of petrol and 1,500m 3<br />
of aviation fuel. The facility also has storage space for 200<br />
metric tonnes of LPG, enough to fill 4,000 12kg canisters a day.<br />
Malocha<br />
Rio <strong>Oil</strong> and<br />
Gas Expo<br />
■ <strong>Sonangol</strong> participated in the giant Rio <strong>Oil</strong> and Gas Expo and<br />
conference held in Rio de Janeiro in September. More than 500<br />
exhibitors were present at the Riocentro Exhibition & Convention<br />
centre located in the western district of Barra da Tijuca, the<br />
planned site of Brazil’s 2016 Olympic Games.<br />
The main theme of the <strong>Sonangol</strong> stand was the<br />
internationalisation of the company’s operations, so subsidiary<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> Starfish <strong>Oil</strong> & Gas was the focus of attention. Joaquim<br />
Leite da Costa, president of <strong>Sonangol</strong> Starfish, said the event<br />
surpassed expectations and gave greater exposure to Starfish,<br />
and was also an excellent opportunity for promoting <strong>Sonangol</strong><br />
around the world.<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> grants<br />
500 scholarships<br />
■ <strong>Sonangol</strong> E.P. has made 500 scholarships available for<br />
degree studies abroad for courses in geosciences, engineering<br />
and technology as well as applied social sciences. The<br />
objective is to meet the future needs of Angola’s oil industry<br />
for qualified personnel. Angola’s Higher Polytechnic Institute<br />
of Science and Technology (ISPTEC) will manage the selection<br />
process of candidates.<br />
Team Schlesser<br />
denied World Cup win<br />
■ Team <strong>Sonangol</strong> Schlesser recorded another win in the twowheel-drive<br />
category race in the Baja Poland cross-country rally<br />
championship in early September. However, a few weeks later<br />
with the title within its grasp, the team failed to win the World Cup<br />
2WD in the Pharaons Rally held in Egypt from September 29 to<br />
October 6. Team <strong>Sonangol</strong> Schlesser was disqualified from the<br />
rally on a technical irregularity because an air-intake duct was<br />
deemed slightly too large.<br />
42 SONANGOL UNIVERSO DECEMBER 2012 43
Tony Hill<br />
LONDON<br />
REGENERATION<br />
SONANGOL LTD TURNS THIRTY<br />
As London-based <strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd approaches its 30th anniversary in February 2013, Universo<br />
looks at its crucial role in marketing Angola’s oil and the aspirations of new CEO Sandra Júlio<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong>’s light, tastefullydecorated<br />
offices, tucked away in<br />
a side street in the shadow of the<br />
world-famous Harrods department<br />
store in London’s West End, have seen<br />
huge changes over the past three decades<br />
in the company and in Angola’s fortunes.<br />
When <strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd was established in<br />
1983, it represented a largely unheard-of<br />
company in world oil markets. It traded<br />
low volumes of oil for low prices from a<br />
country little-known but for conflict.<br />
Today, Angola is in its tenth year of<br />
peace, enjoys an upbeat economy with high<br />
growth rates and has raised its oil output<br />
tenfold. <strong>Sonangol</strong>’s London team deserves<br />
particular credit for making a significant<br />
contribution to improving the reputation<br />
of the company and the country.<br />
“<strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd is the front office of<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> E.P.,” says trading and marketing<br />
manager, Luis Neves, who has been in the<br />
London office for eight years out of his<br />
14-year <strong>Sonangol</strong> career. He took on his<br />
present position in January 2012.<br />
Neves says his job title is a little<br />
misleading, as his role has more to do with<br />
marketing than with trading. Marketing is<br />
the core activity of <strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd.<br />
But, the London office’s functions also<br />
go some way beyond this.<br />
“We publicise Angola’s image and<br />
we’re proud of our 30 years here. <strong>Sonangol</strong><br />
is seen as a good brand. Everybody knows<br />
it now. We’re proud to be Angolan and<br />
African,” he enthuses.<br />
Another role the London office<br />
performs, says Neves, includes facilitating<br />
investment. <strong>Sonangol</strong>’s creditworthiness<br />
helps financial institutions view Angola<br />
and Angolan companies more positively.<br />
This has proved especially important for<br />
the nation’s economy. It has enabled Angola<br />
to be seen as a country where one can do<br />
business and also find trustworthy partners.<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd’s finance manager,<br />
Pankaj Agarwala, a 16-year veteran in<br />
the London office, agrees. “The office<br />
has played a huge role and has had a<br />
great impact on <strong>Sonangol</strong> as a whole<br />
and on Angola, as oil was, and still is, its<br />
main source of earnings. <strong>Sonangol</strong> never<br />
defaults on loans, and this has given the<br />
company and Angola reputational gains.”<br />
Neves also represents <strong>Sonangol</strong> on<br />
OPEC’s economics commission, giving<br />
further evidence of the company’s<br />
improved international profile.<br />
“It’s an honour and it gives Angola<br />
more impact abroad,” he explains.<br />
According to Neves, the challenges<br />
ahead for marketing <strong>Sonangol</strong>’s oil will be<br />
in the decline of purchases by what was<br />
previously its largest client, the United<br />
States. While China is now Angola’s largest<br />
client and the US is in second place, the<br />
latter’s likely self-sufficiency by 2030 could<br />
dent international sales and hit oil prices.<br />
In preparation for this, Angola must seek<br />
alternative markets, he says.<br />
How <strong>Sonangol</strong>’s<br />
trading operations work<br />
Two months before <strong>Sonangol</strong> sells its crude<br />
oil, representatives of its offices meet and<br />
decide upon the likely volume available<br />
and their pricing strategy. A programme<br />
is then produced with the prices, the<br />
different oil ‘streams’ or oil quality types<br />
for sale, and which of Angola’s terminals<br />
will be used for loading. Approximate time<br />
slots for the vessel to start the operation are<br />
also given.<br />
The role of the London, Singapore and<br />
Houston offices is to oversee the contract<br />
and the loading operation.<br />
Once a purchase has been agreed,<br />
the operator works out contract details:<br />
the designation of a vessel for loading,<br />
documentation, letters of credit and<br />
demurrage details (penalties for delays).<br />
Payment for the oil is due after 30 days.<br />
It is up to the buyer to find and lease<br />
a vessel to collect the cargo on an agreed<br />
date. This can sometimes prove tricky as<br />
crude tankers may be two to three weeks’<br />
sailing time away from Angola and have<br />
to be able to reach the terminals in time.<br />
Tankers are costly to run, and failure to<br />
meet a time slot can result in a hefty delay<br />
fee for the buyer.<br />
Each million-barrel cargo usually<br />
takes around 24 hours to load. The oil is<br />
sold for delivery on a schedule based on<br />
an almost constant flow of oil through<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong>’s 15 terminals.<br />
If <strong>Sonangol</strong> fails to honour the loading<br />
time slot, then it may be hit by a contractual<br />
demurrage fee. <strong>Sonangol</strong>’s role now is to<br />
make sure the loading facility operates<br />
promptly, efficiently and has space for<br />
other loadings.<br />
One operator skill is in matching the<br />
buyer to a delivery date. The trader must<br />
try to get the best possible price for the<br />
oil. Market knowledge and experience is<br />
essential as buyers are offered oil from<br />
many producers and new fields in the<br />
same region, so Angola must compete.<br />
Angola has the advantage of geography<br />
for its shipping operations, as it is on<br />
the main route from the Middle East to<br />
Europe. Here an empty tanker may often<br />
be available on its return to the Gulf. This<br />
can then be leased to pick up a lucrative<br />
return cargo, known as ‘backhaul’. The<br />
‘<strong>Sonangol</strong> is seen as a good brand;<br />
everybody knows it’ – Luis Neves<br />
44 SONANGOL UNIVERSO DECEMBER 2012 45
<strong>Sonangol</strong> news briefing <strong>Sonangol</strong> news briefing<br />
Luis Neves: <strong>Trading</strong> & Marketing Manager<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd values<br />
Customer satisfaction<br />
Performance<br />
Effective communication<br />
Team working<br />
Ethical conduct<br />
Respect for diversity<br />
Quality, Health, Safety<br />
& Environment (QHSE)<br />
46 SONANGOL UNIVERSO<br />
tanker could then take Angolan oil to a<br />
Far East customer and thus be closer to its<br />
destination port, having earned an extra<br />
fee on its way home.<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd’s four-strong operations<br />
team is led by Uíge-born manager<br />
Solange Verdade. Verdade has been in<br />
the oil industry for over 20 years, having<br />
previously worked at Elf Aquitaine and<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong>’s US operations in Houston.<br />
Verdade says her role is to make sure crude<br />
loadings and discharge operations (of<br />
refined products) run smoothly.<br />
The main types of problems the<br />
operations team have to deal with are<br />
late vessel arrivals, low inventories and<br />
mechanical failures.<br />
“You have to be organised and active,<br />
and be able to anticipate problems and<br />
respond quickly,” she explains. “Touch<br />
wood, there have been no big incidents.”<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong>’s offices in London, Houston<br />
and Singapore ensure operations are<br />
overseen 24-hours a day, seven days<br />
a week. Operations teams are always<br />
vigilant. “The task needs continuity, so<br />
we don’t take all our annual leave in<br />
one go. You can’t be offline too long,”<br />
says Verdade.<br />
Verdade’s British-born deputy, Stephen<br />
Booth, has been with <strong>Sonangol</strong> for 12 years<br />
and has a background in shipping design<br />
and cargo inspection. He notes that Angola’s<br />
expanding oil output has meant there are<br />
now more cargoes to keep an eye on.<br />
Another member of Verdade’s team is<br />
operations coordinator Jorge Assis, who<br />
hails from Benguela.<br />
Assis started his career with Total<br />
working as an offshore manager, optimising<br />
production and logistics and ensuring safety.<br />
“We make sure the contract is observed<br />
correctly, protect Angola’s interests and<br />
oversee the terminal-customer interface<br />
and check that payment is made on the<br />
due date,” he explains.<br />
In his offshore days, Assis was involved<br />
directly with much larger numbers of staff,<br />
as many as 500, but now works in an office<br />
with fewer than 30.<br />
“The dimensions are smaller, but it’s of<br />
much bigger importance for the company,”<br />
he says with a smile.<br />
Some company history<br />
Former managing director José Carlos de<br />
Castro Paiva played a key role in developing<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd over nearly 30 years until his<br />
retirement at the beginning of 2012.<br />
Paiva says he faced three major<br />
challenges on taking up his post, the<br />
‘terrible trio’ of low oil production, low<br />
prices and war. The company has left each<br />
of these negative factors far behind.<br />
Paiva remembers early days at<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd when traded volumes were<br />
relatively low and a barrel of oil fetched a<br />
mere $6.70. Angola is now a medium-sized<br />
producer and oil is currently hovering<br />
above $105 a barrel, having peaked at $145<br />
in 2008.<br />
One of Paiva’s proudest achievements<br />
was his contribution to helping soothe the<br />
Angolan government’s financial problems<br />
during the heroic period of the country’s<br />
resistance to the military onslaught of<br />
apartheid South Africa. “We did contribute<br />
to keeping the country’s economy alive,”<br />
he remembers.<br />
Based on oil revenues, <strong>Sonangol</strong> was<br />
able to raise finance on London money<br />
markets from a figure of $200 million at<br />
the beginning to $2 billion some years<br />
later for the government’s treasury. “They<br />
were tremendous deals and achievements<br />
Solange Verdade: Operations Manager<br />
Sandra Júlio<br />
Sandra Júlio is a senior crude oil and LPG marketer at<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong>. She started working for <strong>Sonangol</strong> in 1996 as<br />
a systems analyst, after graduating in Computer Science<br />
at the University of Salford near Manchester. In 1997 she<br />
was invited to work at <strong>Sonangol</strong> USA in Houston, Texas,<br />
as a network administrator and assistant to the crude oil<br />
operations manager. Before joining the team in Houston,<br />
she participated on a training programme with Citizens<br />
Resources in Boston, Coastal in Houston and Equator<br />
Bank in Connecticut.<br />
While working at <strong>Sonangol</strong> USA she was involved<br />
in various projects, created the first <strong>Sonangol</strong> crude oil<br />
operations database, and was involved in setting up the<br />
new HQ in Houston. In 2003 she moved to London to work<br />
for the crude oil operations department. In 2005, when<br />
Sanha LPG started production, the company appointed<br />
her to be part of the LPG marketing joint venture team<br />
at Chevron to get experience in the business. After two<br />
years she returned to <strong>Sonangol</strong> and helped establish<br />
the LPG sector at the trading department, and started<br />
marketing Angolan crude and LPG. She also participated<br />
in a training programme for traders with BP and came<br />
out as the top trainee. Sandra Júlio became the first<br />
Angolan female trader inside <strong>Sonangol</strong>.<br />
As a crude oil and LPG trader, she has been involved<br />
in various marketing projects, contracts negotiations,<br />
setting up the new gas department inside the company,<br />
marketing crude oil and LPG cargoes and training new<br />
employees to develop knowledge in marketing crude oil<br />
and gas.<br />
In January 2012 Sandra Júlio was appointed<br />
president and chief executive of <strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd.<br />
Sandra Júlio: President & CEO<br />
‘We want <strong>Sonangol</strong> to be<br />
internationally recognised as a<br />
successful and reputable oil and gas<br />
trading and marketing company’<br />
– Sandra Júlio<br />
Adrian Safranek<br />
DECEMBER 2012 47
OIL & GAS<br />
OIL & GAS<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> news briefing <strong>Sonangol</strong> news briefing<br />
José Paiva: former Managing Director<br />
48 SONANGOL UNIVERSO<br />
Pankaj Agarwala: Finance Manager<br />
Ceri Evans: Supply & Logistics Manager<br />
as it was incredibly difficult to get finance<br />
then,” he recalls.<br />
Another source of pride for Paiva<br />
has been the growth of <strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd’s<br />
reputation for professionalism and<br />
transparency. It has always repaid its<br />
London bankers, and they helped spread<br />
the word about Angola’s creditworthiness.<br />
The financial markets’ confidence<br />
in Angola has risen exponentially and it<br />
enjoys much more favourable interest<br />
rates as its high-risk rating has long<br />
since declined.<br />
The company today is now one of Africa’s<br />
outstanding oil producers. “<strong>Sonangol</strong> has no<br />
African comparison. The market says that,”<br />
Paiva points out enthusiastically.<br />
Building a legacy<br />
One of <strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd’s ingredients to its<br />
success has been the slow turnover of staff,<br />
a sure sign of employee satisfaction. Paiva,<br />
Ceri Evans and recently-retired trader<br />
Andy Whitrow have clocked up more than<br />
a quarter of a century each at the office,<br />
and several younger members of staff are<br />
already into their second decade.<br />
A contented workforce generates<br />
dividends at the client interface. Customers<br />
are always happy to deal with the same<br />
people as it helps build the trust involved<br />
in any long-term relationship. Getting<br />
the right people for the job on board in<br />
the first place, and then keeping them,<br />
has been very important for building the<br />
company’s reputation.<br />
Supply and logistics manager Ceri<br />
Evans, who joined <strong>Sonangol</strong>’s London<br />
operations in May 1983, describes his oilselling<br />
task simply as “turning brown stuff<br />
into green stuff”.<br />
He brought a wealth of experience<br />
to the office, having worked for BP for 14<br />
years, ten of those on the marketing side.<br />
Evans believes the most important<br />
company legacy built up over the past 30<br />
years, apart from selling as much oil as<br />
possible, is its culture of client care.<br />
“We look after clients; we recognise the<br />
value of term relationships, behave as a<br />
major and follow a deal to the letter. We’re<br />
considerate and flexible in approach but<br />
don’t lose focus on the process,” he explains.<br />
“Clients talk to the same people in the<br />
office, know their first names, and these<br />
people do what they say they will do, and that<br />
builds trust and gives an element of stability in<br />
the relationship.”<br />
Evans also believes the best preparation<br />
for <strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd’s future is to make<br />
sure that it loses none of the knowledge<br />
acquired over the past decades.<br />
Looking to the future<br />
The London office is now undergoing a<br />
period of transition as a new chief executive<br />
takes her place at its head and <strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd<br />
comes under the responsibility of Sonaci.<br />
Sandra Júlio was appointed president<br />
and chief executive of <strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd at the<br />
beginning of 2012, succeeding the longserving<br />
José Paiva.<br />
A tribute to the cohesion at the London<br />
office is that Júlio herself was promoted<br />
through the ranks of that office.<br />
Júlio won a scholarship and joined a<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> training scheme in 1991. She<br />
studied Computer Science at Salford<br />
University and also spent one year at<br />
accountants Coopers & Lybrand’s Lisbon<br />
office. Júlio was one of the four pioneers<br />
to open <strong>Sonangol</strong>’s Houston office in 1997.<br />
Her move to the company’s London<br />
office came in 2003 on a rotation<br />
‘<strong>Sonangol</strong> has become one<br />
of Africa’s outstanding<br />
oil companies’<br />
– José Paiva<br />
Why London?<br />
London was the obvious first-choice site for <strong>Sonangol</strong>’s<br />
first major overseas office. It is the world’s largest oil<br />
trading market and a leading financial centre where<br />
banks could be easily contacted to arrange credit for<br />
its oil sales.<br />
The city is also home to the world’s largest shipping<br />
and insurance market and so plays an important role in<br />
providing cover for oil tankers and oil operations.<br />
In the early 1980s, around 85 per cent of Angola’s<br />
oil sales were to the United States, but most of<br />
these companies bought their oil via their London<br />
branch offices.<br />
An added advantage for <strong>Sonangol</strong> is that the<br />
UK is in the same time zone as Luanda, so its<br />
daily operations fit in well with the working day of<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong>’s head office.<br />
For 14 years London was <strong>Sonangol</strong>’s only overseas<br />
office. In 1997, as Angola’s oil production increased,<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> USA was founded and opened offices in<br />
Houston, Texas. This office was tasked with handling<br />
new clients in the region.<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> opened a Singapore office in 2003 to cater<br />
for customers in the fast-expanding Far East markets,<br />
especially China and India.<br />
There has been a marked shift in Angola’s oil<br />
markets: Demand in the United States is falling, China<br />
has become Angola’s largest single customer, and<br />
Angola is China’s leading supplier.<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd in London and its sister offices in<br />
Singapore and Houston have a mutually beneficial<br />
relationship. Each provides operational advantages to<br />
the others as they share their workload. Individual oil<br />
operations enjoy round-the-clock support as the three<br />
offices can serve them through three major time zones.<br />
The offices have a flexible and informal relationship<br />
with each other and between sellers and buyers, so no<br />
one office assumes a geographic territory.<br />
The workload of supporting contracts is fairly divided<br />
between the three offices. <strong>Sonangol</strong> sells approximately<br />
27 individual one million barrel-loads of oil a month, so<br />
each overseas offices handles roughly nine loads a month.<br />
Since October there has been an organisational<br />
reshuffle at <strong>Sonangol</strong>, and the three international offices<br />
are now under the umbrella directorship of <strong>Sonangol</strong><br />
Comercialização Internacional (Sonaci) headed by Ruth<br />
da Costa David.<br />
Quality coordination<br />
Kevin Stearns, <strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd’s office manager is a former<br />
British soldier, and in his 15 years of service he was involved<br />
in logistics operations. Stearns brings to the company a<br />
mind-set of tight process discipline and observance that is<br />
an essential ingredient for operational success.<br />
Since London gained ‘sister offices’ in Houston<br />
and Singapore, process uniformity in quality and<br />
implementation has become even more important as the<br />
three offices cooperate continuously. There are hand-overs<br />
when overseeing individual ship loadings as part of their<br />
24-hour service provision.<br />
In order to attain service<br />
uniformity, Stearns has<br />
been heavily involved in<br />
implementing a programme<br />
of ISO certification. The aim<br />
of certification is continuous<br />
service improvement, and the<br />
three offices are encouraged to<br />
audit each other’s compliance<br />
with process schedules to<br />
attain this goal.<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd gained<br />
its first ISO certification<br />
in 2009 and is currently<br />
in the process of recertification<br />
and upgrading to even<br />
higher standards.<br />
Kevin Stearns: Office Manager<br />
DECEMBER 2012 49
02<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> news briefing <strong>Sonangol</strong> news briefing<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong>’s consumers<br />
03<br />
04<br />
05<br />
Jorge Assis: Operations Coordinator<br />
50 SONANGOL UNIVERSO<br />
01<br />
06<br />
07<br />
08<br />
programme. Júlio later spent two more<br />
years working in Chevron when the<br />
innovative Sanha liquefied petroleum gas<br />
project started up, this time for Chevron<br />
as an LPG trader. Sanha, off the coast of<br />
Cabinda, was the world’s first dedicated<br />
floating LPG production, storage and<br />
offloading (FPSO) facility.<br />
Júlio returned to <strong>Sonangol</strong>’s London<br />
office in 2007 when she was appointed<br />
crude oil and LPG trader.<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd’s environment has<br />
changed markedly since its foundation<br />
30 years ago and there are new challenges<br />
ahead for the youthful Júlio as she leads the<br />
company’s largest overseas office forward.<br />
Júlio says it is a big advantage to have<br />
known <strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd well before taking<br />
office as its chief executive. However, she<br />
is conscious that the company will have<br />
to face increasingly strong competition in<br />
the future.<br />
“So we have to keep up and improve<br />
09<br />
10<br />
11<br />
12<br />
13<br />
14<br />
15<br />
16<br />
17<br />
18<br />
19<br />
01 China..................................... 50.86<br />
02 India ........................................ 8.77<br />
03 Taiwan .................................... 5.10<br />
04 US East Coast ........................ 4.53<br />
05 US Gulf Coast ........................ 4.50<br />
06 South Africa ........................... 4.11<br />
07 Angola .................................... 3.45<br />
08 US West Coast ....................... 2.91<br />
09 UK ........................................... 2.81<br />
10 Portugal .................................. 2.75<br />
11 Canada ................................... 2.72<br />
12 Spain ....................................... 2.71<br />
13 Italy ......................................... 1.07<br />
14 Peru ........................................ 1.00<br />
15 France ..................................... 0.68<br />
16 Holland ................................... 0.68<br />
17 US Atlantic Coast .................. 0.67<br />
18 Sweden ................................... 0.35<br />
19 Thailand .................................. 0.32<br />
our portfolio of clients, offer better services<br />
and be proactive,” she says.<br />
“Previously, Angola just sold its oil<br />
assets. Now we want to trade other grades,<br />
increase the volume of trading activity, not<br />
only of Angolan oil grades but also other<br />
non-Angolan grades”.<br />
The result of this will be to have a larger<br />
portfolio of oil grades to offer clients.<br />
She points out that there is no problem<br />
with Angola’s current grades as refiners are<br />
more flexible, especially China and India,<br />
which have a broad range of refineries.<br />
There is a good demand for Angolan grades.<br />
A <strong>Sonangol</strong> sea-change in recent years<br />
has been the shift away from selling to<br />
North American markets, which used to<br />
take over 70 per cent of Angola’s oil, to<br />
China as its main client.<br />
The US is seen as a declining oil-import<br />
market and one of Angola’s challenges is<br />
to compete for new markets to replace it.<br />
Júlio is adamant that London’s<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> <strong>Limited</strong><br />
<strong>Trading</strong><br />
Department<br />
Operations<br />
Department<br />
primacy as a location for <strong>Sonangol</strong><br />
Ltd is unlikely to be challenged in the<br />
near future.<br />
“It’s an important office and the<br />
first overseas office of <strong>Sonangol</strong>. We’ve<br />
been here since 1983. London is the<br />
world’s largest oil trading hub and a<br />
leading financial and business centre.<br />
We’re in the same time zone as Luanda<br />
and we’re central. We’re also near our<br />
banks, financial institutions and clients,<br />
since most trading companies have<br />
Sonacare<br />
President<br />
& CEO<br />
Finance<br />
Department<br />
‘International oil and gas trading<br />
will invigorate <strong>Sonangol</strong>’s<br />
marketing activity’<br />
– Sandra Júlio<br />
IT Department<br />
representatives in London. I believe we<br />
have better access to them in the UK. We<br />
also have good professionals in-house.”<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd has long been considered<br />
the company’s front office and Angola’s<br />
window on the world. This has proved<br />
especially important for the country’s<br />
economy. It has enabled Angola to be seen<br />
as a country where one can do business and<br />
also find trustworthy partners. It is now very<br />
well respected, considered one of the best<br />
African companies and a first-class supplier.<br />
Administration<br />
Department<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> <strong>Limited</strong><br />
Merevale House,<br />
Brompton Place,<br />
London SW3 1QE<br />
www.sonangol.co.ao<br />
Supply & Logistics<br />
Department<br />
In the future, staff training, especially<br />
of Angolans, is high up Júlio’s agenda. At<br />
the moment she is the only Angolan female<br />
that can trade oil and LPG.<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd has only seven Angolans<br />
out of its 27 employees. Júlio says<br />
she would love to see more Angolans<br />
gaining experience in the marketing and<br />
trading business.<br />
“I’d like to see more Angolans involved in<br />
the crude-oil supply chain, from exploration<br />
and production of crude oil to trading,<br />
refining and retail markets,” she says.<br />
With this in mind <strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd, in<br />
conjunction with Sonaci and <strong>Sonangol</strong><br />
associates, is preparing several exciting<br />
training programmes for its new staff<br />
including many Angolans.<br />
“We also want to promote more<br />
rotation among the Angolans working in<br />
the trading units, so that they gain more<br />
experience in other markets,” she explains.<br />
<strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd’s new chief executive<br />
describes her mission as acting as an agent<br />
for Sonaci to market and trade oil and gas<br />
products while offering clients competitive<br />
and value-maximising solutions.<br />
“We want <strong>Sonangol</strong> to be internationally<br />
recognised as a successful<br />
and reputable oil and gas trading and<br />
marketing company,” she says.<br />
All the signs indicate that Sandra Júlio,<br />
backed by her highly-professional team,<br />
should maintain <strong>Sonangol</strong> Ltd’s legacy<br />
and the company’s good reputation for<br />
professionalism and transparency. p<br />
DECEMBER 2012 51