Oando plants a foot in Angola with Block KON 13
Sopuruchi Onwuka
Nigeria’s fast growing energy firm, Oando, has successfully clinched a joint venture deal, clearing the way for it to become the first Nigerian company to lead an exploration and production joint venture in the Africa’s second largest oil producing nation.
Oando announced that it won the bid for operatorship of Block KON 13 in Angola’s Onshore Kwanza Basin during a licensing round hosted by the Angolan National Agency for Petroleum, Gas, and Biofuels (ANPG).
The Angolan block is held by Oando Energy Resources (OER), a wholly owned upstream subsidiary of Oando, holding interests in fourteen oil and gas assets encompassing exploration, development, and production activities, both onshore and offshore in Nigeria and São Tomé and Príncipe.
The company maintains an extensive asset portfolio comprising over 22,447 square km of acreage, a capacity to handle 483,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd), a gas handling capacity of 3,663 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscf/d), 3.5 million barrels of terminal capacity, a pipeline network spanning over 1,255 km, 14 flow stations, and a 1GW power plant.
Parent Oando Plc is listed on both the Nigerian Exchange Limited and Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
The license confers OER with 45% participating interest in addition to operating rights for the development of the block. Other companies in the joint venture are Effimax which holds 30% interest and Sonangol which retains the remaining 15% non operating interest.
Oando stated that Block KON 13 is strategically located in the prolific Kwanza Onshore Basin with significant exploration potential in both pre-salt and post-salt plays.
The block, Oando stated, projects estimated prospective resources of between 770 million barrels (MMbbls) and 1.1 billion barrels (Bbbls) of oil. It also hosts existing two 3,000 meter-deep exploration wells that indicated oil and gas columns across various depths.
Group Chief Executive, Wale Tinubu, said the award of the licnese underscores Oando’s relentless commitment to expanding its footprint across Africa and contributing to the continent’s energy sufficiency goals.
“I am confident in our ability to leverage our expertise to develop and maximize the value of this asset. We look forward to collaborating with our co-venturers and other key stakeholders to harness this opportunity and unlock its full potential for Angola and Africa as a whole,” he pledged.
The Oracle Today reports that Wale Tinubu and his management teams had at the Africa Energy Week in Cape Town, South Africa, last month, called on African governments to farm out latent petroleum assets to a evolving African independent oil firms for optimization.
He stated that Oando and other growing independent companies in the continent are poised to valorise vast oil and gas reserves across Africa’s hydrocarbon basins, arguing that international oil companies are currently scaling down their investments in fossil energy development in response to their commitments to climate action and envisaged demand shift from petroleum energy.
Wale Tinubu had declared Oando’s willingness and readiness to be a reliable partner to African governments that welcome new alliances.
Oando described the milestone marks a strategic entry into the Angolan oil and gas market and a significant step in its long-term vision to grow its upstream operations across Africa.
“It solidifies the Company’s position as a prominent player in the Continent’s energy landscape, evolving from a local indigenous operator to a regional powerhouse,” according to the statement.
Following the Company’s recent successful acquisition of NAOC Ltd in Nigeria, the addition of Block KON 13 further bolsters the company’s upstream portfolio and reflects its commitment to driving regional growth and energy security.
