The Intelligence Review | volume 1 | issue 2 |

Recent Developments
Angola’s recent attempt to restructure Sonangol has relied on Isabel dos Santos. With the
country ranking high in government corruption, her appointment is viewed by many as
nepotism. The Angolan government claims this move to be an effort to revitalize Sonangol,
since recent low crude oil prices have decreased company income (Anon. 2016a). However,
since Isabel dos Santos’ appointment, foreign oil investors have not received payment for
their services (George 2016). The debts owed to these entities range from hundreds of
thousands to hundreds of millions of dollars. Due to the rising amount of debt, Sonangol
requested a moratorium on repayment until the beginning of 2017. The company argues
that it is tackling the lack of transparency and low crude oil prices, which result in decreasing
revenue (George 2016). In January of 2017, Angolan banks requested that the government
work with them to create a bailout package in an attempt to protect account holders suffering
from low crude-oil prices (Mendes and McClelland 2017). Despite dos Santos’ apparent
underperformance thus far, Angola has sustained relatively consistent oil production levels.
November of 2015 saw Nigeria’s highly profitable oil sector, which has historically led
African oil exports, fall behind Angola in production (Asu 2016). The effects of militant
activities in the Niger Delta have partially crippled Nigeria’s oil production capabilities,
causing its levels to fluctuate and allowing Angola to surge ahead in oil production. The
NDA, which is considered a militant group (Owolabi 2016), carried out numerous attacks
on Nigerian oil infrastructure throughout 2016. The NDA fight the Nigerian government
and international oil companies (IOCs), in the belief that they represent the citizens of the
Niger Delta. They argue that, despite the region accounting for 90 percent of national oil
and 75 percent of export earnings, its citizens receive almost no share of the wealth and
are subject to abuse from the military (Taylor 2008). The NDA’s primary objectives are to
increase the amount of oil revenue being allocated to the region (Anon. 2016c) and to
alleviate human-rights issues. They pursue their goals by attacking oil infrastructure —
primarily, oil pipelines that transport crude oil to refineries. NDA attacks caused Nigeria a
loss of close to 700,000 barrels of oil per day, in the spring of 2016 (Calcuttawala 2016b).
This led the Nigerian government to negotiate a ceasefire with the NDA in early September.
Soon afterwards, however, the Nigerian government began to increase the presence of
military personnel in the region, which in turn prompted more attacks by the NDA. As a
result, the ceasefire collapsed in early November. Previously, in May of 2016, President Buhari
had sent military personnel to attack the NDA. But many civilians claimed that the government
troops had raped citizens and looted the properties of people who were unaffiliated with
the NDA (Anon. 2016d). More recently, continued deterioration of some pipelines, as a
result of NDA attacks, has caused President Buhari, to consider importing crude oil from
its bordering neighbor, Niger. His stated intention is to use Niger’s oil to supply the
Kaduna refinery, as all other refineries are located in the Niger Delta (Anon. 2016b).
In November of 2016, OPEC reached an agreement, for the first time in eight years, to
cut oil production (Chappell 2016). This agreement, which was implemented in January of
2017, exempts Libya and Nigeria from participation. Nigeria obtained exemption from the
production cut due to the damage in oil infrastructure and the effects caused on oilproduction
capabilities by “attacks on its oil facilities by armed militant groups in the Niger
Delta region” (Udo 2016). The agreement does not, however, exempt Angola, which must
cut crude oil production by 80,000 barrels a day (Plumer 2016).
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