{"id":29005,"date":"2018-12-19T01:30:04","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T23:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/angola\/organization-of-the-petroleum-exporting-countries-opec-applauds-angola-reforms-during-landmark-visit\/"},"modified":"2018-12-19T01:30:05","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T23:30:05","slug":"organization-of-the-petroleum-exporting-countries-opec-applauds-angola-reforms-during-landmark-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/angola\/organization-of-the-petroleum-exporting-countries-opec-applauds-angola-reforms-during-landmark-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) applauds Angola Reforms during landmark visit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"image_wrap\"><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><em>Angola&rsquo;s leadership is undertaking crucial tax and policy changes to diversify the economy while opening the oil sector to new investment; H.E. Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo visited Luanda for the first time as Secretary General of OPEC; Barkindo on Angola: &ldquo;Right reforms at the right time&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>During his first visit to Angola as the head of OPEC, H.E. Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo lauded Angola&rsquo;s leadership for its strong reforms in the oil and gas sector &mdash; which span from tax reforms to new gas monetization policies &mdash; during a two-day visit in Luanda that wrapped up today.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We congratulate the government&rsquo;s heroic efforts to reform the industry. These are the right reforms at the right time. We at OPEC applaud these reforms,&rdquo; said H.E. Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo, Secretary General of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>H.E. President Jo&atilde;o Louren&ccedil;o and his administration, including H.E. Diamantino Azevedo, Minister of Mineral Resources and Petroleum of Angola, have pushed through a series of bold regulatory reforms aimed at attracting new investment and diversifying the oil-dependent economy, including tax reforms, the creation of the new National Agency of Petroleum to manage oil and gas concessions, putting a new focus on downstream investment, the creation of a new institute for the regulation of oil and gas byproducts, and implementing new policies to encourage the utilization and monetization of gas.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Barkindo&rsquo;s visit to Angola was his first in his capacity of secretary general of OPEC, and comes shortly after Angola joined the Gas Exporting Countries Forum as a new member and as the country is aggressively pursuing new investment in its mature oil and gas industry. Angola&rsquo;s current oil production is 1.49 million barrels per day.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>During the visit, Barkindo emphasized Angola&rsquo;s role as one of 25 countries now participating in Declaration of Cooperation between OPEC and non-OPEC members to reduce oil output and maintain oil price stability, adding that &ldquo;this stability is good for both producers and consumers.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Angola&rsquo;s investment outlook has improved with the oil price in 2018, with new projects in the country reaching final investment decision, like Total&rsquo;s Zinia deepwater project. The government is also executing a new strategy to ensure self-sufficiency of oil supplies by investing in new and existing oil refineries, including the refineries at Cabina and Luanda.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Despite the efforts of our government to diversity our economy, oil still plays an important function in our growth. As such, stability is very important to our industry,&rdquo; said Azevedo.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The Ministry of Mineral Resources and Petroleum also hosted a workshop during the visit for OPEC to educate local industry members on the global role of OPEC.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;History will conclude that Angola joining the OPEC family was a precursor to members of our organization increasing and a strengthening of the African voice in our decision-making structures and this new era of cooperation amongst oil producing countries,&rdquo; Barkindo said.<\/p>\n<p> <i>Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Africa Oil &amp; Power conference.<\/i><\/p>\n<div><strong>Media Contact:<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>James Chester<\/div>\n<div>Chief Content Officer<\/div>\n<div>E: j.chester@africabranding.com<\/div>\n<div>M: +27 (0)60 675 4850<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/africaoilandpower.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/organization-of-the-petroleum-exporting-countries-opec-applauds-angola-reforms-during-landmark-visit?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa <a title=\"Angola\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/southern-africa\/angola\/\">Angola<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Angola&rsquo;s leadership is undertaking crucial tax and policy changes to diversify the economy while opening the oil sector to new investment; H.E. Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo visited Luanda for the first time as Secretary General of OPEC; Barkindo on Angola: &ldquo;Right reforms at the right time&rdquo; During his first visit to Angola as the head of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":188473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4262],"tags":[258,256,4263,257,254],"class_list":["post-29005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-angola","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-angola-news","tag-news","tag-south-africa-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}