Equinor Says Angola’s Decline-Fighting Oil Policy Is Working

(Bloomberg) -- Equinor ASA said Angola’s efforts to stave off a decline in its oil production by updating policy is having a positive effect.

Steps taken by one of the biggest crude-producing nations on the continent, including the incremental production initiative that offers incentives to increase output from existing developments, are a “very positive” development that’s “quite rare in the business,” said Nina Birgitte Koch, Equinor’s senior vice president in Africa.

“It will unblock resources that otherwise would’ve been stranded, so it’s a very proactive approach,” she said in an interview at a conference in Cape Town on Tuesday.

Angola is working to stem a years-long decline in oil output caused by lack of investment. The country has set a target of maintaining output above 1 million barrels a day, and last year quit OPEC because the group was insisting on cutting its production limit by 400,000 barrels a day.

The southern African nation accounts for the biggest share of Equinor’s output on the continent, producing about 110,000 barrels a day from a total of about 175,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, according to Koch. The balance is mainly gas from Algeria, where the company is working to extend licenses with Eni SpA and the state oil company Sonatrach.

Equinor is also trying to develop discoveries in Tanzania with a liquefied natural gas project, which has been making very slow progress for years.

“There is a need to align across the partnership and with the government — basically to move things forward,” Koch said about Tanzania. “Things take time and we are resilient.”