Angola’s National Agency of Oil, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG) plans to award nine more concessions by the end of the year, bringing the total to 41 since 2019, as part of its target to award 50 concessions by 2025.

The announcement was made during a session on Angola’s 2025 Licensing Round at African Energy Week: Invest in African Energies on Wednesday.  According to ANPG, there are currently 28 licensing opportunities available – including six onshore blocks, ten blocks on permanent offer, eight offshore blocks under the 2025 bidding round, and four block opportunities with discoveries.

In addition to its ambitious concession award strategy, Angola has implemented several measures to drive upstream investment. These include enabling exploration activities beyond designated development areas, introducing new terms for marginal fields, facilitating the monetization of gas discoveries, renegotiating contract terms for mature blocks and offering new incentives to boost incremental production.

As a result, production has stabilized at around 1.1 million barrels per day, with six oil and gas majors expanding their portfolios to include five or more blocks in recent years. Building on its gas monetization reforms, ANPG also announced that it will soon sign its first non-associated gas contract with Azule Energy.

“In Angola, investors are our number one priority. We guarantee contractual stability so you can preserve the value you have,” said Hélder Iombo, Director of Negotiations at ANPG. “We are agile to give you concessions, flexible to give you the right terms and pragmatic in creating the right environment for investors.”

National oil company Sonangol also weighed in on efforts to reverse Angola’s declining production and attract new investments across various operations – from refining capacity to decarbonization initiatives to exploration of strategic minerals. Sonangol highlighted its commitment to enhancing local production capacity for energy transition technologies, including panels, batteries and clean energy infrastructure.

“We are ensuring investments in crude oil and natural gas in a sustainable way, while constructing new refineries, exploring new forms of energy production and commiting to decarbonization through all our operations,” said Kátia Epalanga, Executive Board Member of Sonangol.