Biomass accounts for 58% of the country's energy consumption; oil accounts for 35%, gas 4% and hydroelectric power 3%.
Primary energy use in 2009 in Angola was 138 TWh and 7 TWh per million persons.[1]
Angolans used to suffer frequent daily blackouts. In 2012, days before the election, the government announced $17B US in planned energy investment, designed to alleviate the paucity of available energy.[2]
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reports that Angola's renewable energy usage increased from 50% of the total energy supply in 2015 to 63% in 2020. Within this sector, bioenergy represents 85% of Angola's renewable energy supply as of 2020. This shift in Angola's energy strategy indicates a move towards sustainable resources, reducing the country's previous dependence on conventional fuels like oil and gas.[3]
Angola ranks second in crude oil production in sub-Saharan Africa, after Nigeria. In 2022, the country produced an average of 1.165 million barrels of oil per day, according to its National Oil, Gas and Biofuel's Agency (ANPG).[5]
Lobito refinery
Development has been planned but much delayed, of a new 200,000-barrel-per-day (32,000 m3/d) refinery in the city of Lobito, on the coast. The Angolan state-owned oil company Sonangol would have a 70 percent stake in the Sonaref refinery at Lobito, its then-head Carlos Saturnino said in 2006, and the Chinese oil company Sinopec would retain the remainder.[6]
Oil in the Angolan economy
Angola's economy was profoundly affected by the sharp drop in oil prices in 2014 and in 2020. This is even though new skyscrapers, appeared in Luanda; offices, shopping centres and apartment buildings proliferated in a "mini-golden age" as leading economist Alves da Rocha called it, from 2003-2008. Yet "probably three quarters" of the population of Luanda live in "tumbledown slums".[7] Two thirds of the 16.5 million people in Angola live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank,[8] and the oil industry employs less than one percent of the workforce.[7]
Foreigners, including Chinese construction companies and several hundred thousand Chinese workers, and as many or more Portuguese and Brazilian trade and finance consultants and managers. Oil companies set up shop in Angola.[9]
Oil spills in Angola
Angola fined Chevron Texaco $2m for causing environmental damage in 2002[10] to fisheries caused by obsolete tubes at the Cabinda oilfield. Chevron promised to spend $108 m replacing the pipes. The company pumps almost three-quarters of Angola's oil, and also reduced crude production about 12%, after a pipeline leak.[11]
Natural gas
Angola LNG made its first shipment in June 2013. A system failure brought a design flaw to light in 2014, and production resumed only in 2015.[12] In order to maintain the supply of gas to the facility, oil majors in Angola have formed a New Gas Consortium that took a final investment decision (FID) in 2022 on developing the Quiluma and Maboqueiro non-associated gas fields.[13]
