Sonangol Group

Group Sonangol (Portuguese: Grupo Sonangol) is a parastatal that oversees petroleum and natural gas production in Angola. The group consists of Sonangol EP (Portuguese: Sociedade Nacional de Combustíveis de Angola, E.P.) and its many subsidiaries. The subsidiaries generally have Sonangol EP as a primary client, along with other corporate, commercial and individual clients. Angola is estimated to have over 5 billion barrels (790,000,000 m³) of offshore and coastal petroleum reserves, and new discoveries are outpacing consumption by a 5 to 1 ratio.

History

On the eve of Portuguese Angola's independence from Portugal following the Carnation Revolution and the election of a democratic government in Portugal in 1976, the company ANGOL (ANGOL Sociedade de Lubrificantes e Combustivels Sarl), founded in 1953 as a subsidiary of Portuguese company SACOR) was nationalized and split in two, forming Sonangol U.E.E. and Direcção Nacional de Petróleos. Directive 52/76 instituted Sonangol as a state-owned company with a mandate to manage the country's substantial petroleum and natural gas. Using the extant remains of Texaco, Total, Shell and Mobil's oil works, Sonangol obtained the assistance of Algerian Sonatrach and of Italian Eni.