ANPG 2025 Licensing Round

The 2025 Tender

ANPG has launched a limited public tender for up to 10 offshore blocks in the Kwanza and Benguela basins as part of the final year of its six-year licensing programme (2019-2025). This round follows the March 2024 award of 12 blocks in the Lower Congo and Kwanza basins and represents the culmination of a licensing effort designed to inject fresh exploration capital into Angola’s declining upstream sector.

What Is On Offer

The Kwanza Basin blocks are the most significant offering, as the basin is the primary target for pre-salt exploration — the geological play that could transform Angola’s production outlook if it delivers discoveries analogous to Brazil’s Santos and Campos basins.

The Benguela Basin represents more frontier territory. Less well characterised than the Congo or Kwanza basins, Benguela blocks carry higher geological risk but also the potential for genuinely new play discoveries.

Context: The Licensing Programme to Date

The six-year programme was designed to auction 50 new blocks across six basins:

The programme has not achieved the full 50-block target. The frontier onshore basins (Etosha, Okavango, Kassange) have attracted limited interest due to poor geological data, lack of infrastructure, and higher exploration risk. The offshore basins — particularly Congo and Kwanza — have been more successful in attracting bids.

Investment Target: USD 60 Billion

ANPG projects that new investment in Angola’s upstream sector will exceed USD 60 billion over the next five years. This figure encompasses exploration drilling commitments from licence holders, development capital for approved projects, and infill drilling on mature blocks under the November 2024 incremental production decree.

Whether the 2025 round contributes materially to this target depends on:

1. The number and quality of bids received
2. The work programme commitments made by successful bidders
3. Whether bidders are credible operators with capital to execute
4. Global oil price conditions at the time of bid evaluation

Competitive Landscape

The 2025 round competes for IOC capital against licensing opportunities in:

• Namibia: Orange Basin discoveries by Shell and TotalEnergies have generated significant excitement
• Guyana/Suriname: Continued ExxonMobil success has attracted multiple operators
• Brazil: Pre-salt acreage remains highly competitive
• Nigeria: Marginal field and deepwater licensing programmes

Angola’s advantage is established infrastructure — existing FPSOs, subsea systems, pipelines, and the Soyo LNG terminal — which reduces development timelines for discoveries near producing areas. Its disadvantage is a high government take that reduces project returns compared to some competitors.

Pre-Salt Significance

The Kwanza Basin blocks in this round may include acreage with pre-salt prospectivity. If operators commit to deep exploration wells targeting the pre-salt section — at costs of USD 100-200 million per well — the 2025 round could mark the beginning of Angola’s pre-salt exploration era.

Pre-salt targets lie beneath thick salt sequences at total depths of 5,000-7,000 metres, requiring specialised drilling capabilities. Only a handful of operators globally have the technical capacity and financial appetite for this type of exploration.

What Success Looks Like

A successful 2025 round would deliver:

• Multiple blocks awarded to credible operators
• Committed exploration drilling programmes with specific timelines
• Work programme spending of USD 500 million or more over the initial exploration period
• At least one operator targeting pre-salt objectives
• Participation by both major IOCs and smaller, more exploration-focused independents

Implications for Production

Even under the most optimistic scenario, blocks awarded in 2025 will not contribute production for 7-12 years. Exploration drilling, appraisal, development planning, and construction take a decade from licensing to first oil. The 2025 round is therefore a long-term play — building the production base for the early-to-mid 2030s rather than addressing the immediate production decline.

Near-term production stabilisation depends on brownfield investment in existing concessions and the incremental production decree, not on new licensing.

Outlook

The 2025 round is the final act of ANPG’s inaugural licensing programme. Its outcomes will determine whether Angola can sustain exploration momentum beyond the initial programme and whether a follow-on licensing initiative is warranted. For the broader context, see ANPG Concession Rounds and the ANPG entity profile.

Sources

• Angola Oil & Gas Portal
• US ITA — Angola Oil and Gas Industry Growth
• ANPG public tender announcements

2025 Limited Public Tender Details

ANPG’s 2025 limited public tender offers up to 10 offshore blocks in the Kwanza and Benguela basins, targeting both conventional and pre-salt exploration opportunities. This round follows the March 2024 tender that awarded 12 blocks in the Lower Congo and Kwanza basins and forms part of the broader six-year licensing program (2019-2025) targeting 50 new blocks across six sedimentary basins.

Fiscal Incentives and Competitive Positioning

The 2025 licensing round operates alongside the November 2024 Incremental Production Decree, which improves fiscal terms for reinvestment in mature blocks. Together, these measures create a dual strategy: new exploration through licensing rounds and brownfield optimization through fiscal reform. This approach responds to the competitive pressure from lower-cost provinces where deepwater breakeven costs are USD 30-35/barrel compared to Angola’s approximately USD 40/barrel.

The major IOCs expected to participate include TotalEnergies, Chevron, Azule Energy (BP/Eni), ExxonMobil, and Equinor, all of which maintain significant operational presence in Angola. ANPG manages over 40 active concessions (6 in production, 27 under exploration, 4 under development, 7 under negotiation), providing a track record that supports investor confidence.

Production and Development Impact

The 2025 round supports the PDN 2023-2027’s target of maintaining production above 1.1 million b/d through 2027 by replenishing the exploration pipeline needed for long-term production replacement. The consensus forecast projects production rising in 2026 and gaining momentum through 2029, with the blocks awarded in the 2024 and 2025 rounds expected to contribute to the post-2030 production trajectory. Sonangol’s participation alongside IOCs in the new blocks aligns with the national oil company’s strategy of maintaining a strategic presence in 35 concessions while focusing on operational excellence after its restructuring separated regulatory functions to ANPG.

Development Planning Context

This policy area connects to the broader PDN 2023-2027 framework, which is structured around 16 policies, 50 programs, and 284 action priorities across six strategic axes. The plan targets 62 trillion kwanzas in total GDP with non-oil GDP growth of approximately 5% annually, reflecting the government’s commitment to reducing dependence on petroleum revenue. Angola’s 2024 GDP growth of 4.4%, the strongest performance in five years, was driven by both oil and non-oil sectors, with agriculture outpacing GDP growth for four consecutive years and its share of GDP rising from 6.2% in 2010 to 14.9% in 2023. Public debt reduction from over 100% of GDP in 2020 to just above 60% in 2024 demonstrates the fiscal discipline underpinning the development strategy. The Estrategia de Longo Prazo Angola 2050 projects non-oil exports growing from USD 5 billion to USD 64 billion by 2050, with the energy and petroleum sectors providing the transitional revenue base and infrastructure foundation for this economic transformation.

Institutional Framework and Sector Governance

The petroleum sector operates under the institutional architecture established by the Electricity Sector Transformation Process and the separation of ANPG (upstream regulation) from Sonangol (operations) in 2019. This governance reform created a more transparent regulatory environment that has strengthened investor confidence. ANPG manages over 40 concessions across six sedimentary basins, while Sonangol focuses on operational excellence with turnover of USD 10.5 billion, investment of USD 2.4 billion, and production of 201,000 barrels per day in 2024. The five major IOCs operating in Angola, including Chevron, TotalEnergies, Azule Energy (BP/Eni), ExxonMobil, and Equinor, benefit from the clearer regulatory framework as they evaluate new investment commitments in a competitive global exploration environment.

Licensing Program Scope and Investment Pipeline

ANPG’s six-year licensing program (2019-2025) aims to auction 50 new blocks across the Congo, Namibe, Benguela, Etosha, Okavango, and Kassange basins. Winners for a 12-block tender covering the Lower Congo and Kwanza basins were announced in March 2024. The 2025 limited public tender covers up to 10 offshore blocks in the Kwanza and Benguela basins. With over 40 concessions currently in operation — 6 in production, 27 under exploration, 4 under development, and 7 under negotiation — ANPG projects over USD 60 billion in new investment over the next five years. The November 2024 incremental production decree introduces fiscal reforms to attract capital back into mature offshore blocks, complementing the upstream investment outlook.

Geological Prospectivity of the 2025 Offering

The Kwanza Basin blocks offered in the 2025 round carry particular geological significance because they overlay the pre-salt carbonate reservoir section that has proven extraordinarily productive on the conjugate Brazilian margin. The South Atlantic rift architecture, which separated Angola from Brazil approximately 130 million years ago, created mirror-image geological structures across the two margins. Brazil’s Santos and Campos basins have yielded pre-salt discoveries exceeding 50 billion barrels of recoverable resources, transforming Brazil into one of the world’s leading offshore producers. The geological argument for Angola’s pre-salt potential is rooted in this conjugate margin analogy.

However, geological analogy is not geological certainty. The reservoir quality, source rock maturity, and trap geometry on the Angolan side may differ from the Brazilian counterpart in ways that only drilling can resolve. Previous exploration wells in the Kwanza Basin have encountered pre-salt sections but without the commercial-scale hydrocarbons found in Brazil. Whether this reflects insufficient exploration effort, different geological conditions, or simply the statistical reality that not every well finds oil remains an open question that the 2025 round’s work programs are designed to answer.

The Benguela Basin blocks represent genuine frontier territory where the geological database is thinner. Limited seismic coverage and no recent exploration drilling mean that Benguela blocks carry higher geological risk but also higher upside potential if a new petroleum system is confirmed. Operators bidding on Benguela blocks are making a longer-term exploration bet that requires patience and capital tolerance that not all companies possess.

Environmental and Social Considerations

Offshore exploration in the Kwanza and Benguela basins triggers environmental review requirements under both Angolan law and international operator standards. Deepwater exploration drilling generates seismic survey impacts on marine life, discharge risks from drilling fluids and cuttings, and the low-probability but high-consequence risk of well control incidents. Operators must prepare environmental impact assessments, emergency response plans, and community engagement frameworks as conditions of their exploration licenses.

The Benguela Current marine ecosystem along Angola’s southern coast is one of the most productive fisheries zones in the South Atlantic. Exploration activity in the Benguela Basin must balance petroleum development with the preservation of fisheries resources that support over 150,000 workers and contribute 2.1% of GDP through the fisheries sector. This balance requires spatial planning that separates exploration zones from critical fishing grounds, temporal restrictions during spawning seasons, and monitoring programs that detect environmental impacts before they become irreversible.

Fiscal Regime Competitiveness Assessment

The 2025 round’s ability to attract competitive bids depends partly on ANPG’s fiscal terms relative to other global exploration opportunities. Angola’s fiscal regime combines a petroleum income tax, production sharing arrangements with profit oil splits favoring the state at higher oil prices, signature bonuses, and social contributions. The aggregate government take, the percentage of project value captured by the state through all fiscal mechanisms, is among the highest in Sub-Saharan African offshore provinces.

This high government take served Angola well during the era of abundant IOC capital seeking deepwater opportunities. In the current environment, where IOCs face capital discipline from shareholders demanding higher returns, energy transition investment commitments, and attractive exploration opportunities in lower-cost basins like Guyana and Namibia, the fiscal regime may need adjustment to remain competitive. The November 2024 incremental production decree addressed this concern for mature blocks, but exploration blocks in the 2025 round may require their own fiscal incentives, such as extended exploration periods, reduced signature bonus requirements, or more favorable profit oil splits during the early production years when capital recovery is most critical.

The 2025 round will test whether ANPG’s current fiscal framework can attract sufficient interest from credible operators, or whether further fiscal reform is needed to compete effectively in the global exploration capital market. The round’s outcomes will directly inform post-2025 licensing strategy and determine whether a follow-on licensing program is warranted.

Data Room Preparation and Investor Engagement

The quality of the data room, the geological, geophysical, and commercial information package that ANPG provides to prospective bidders, directly influences the number and quality of bids received. A well-prepared data room containing modern seismic surveys, reprocessed legacy data, regional geological assessments, and clear fiscal terms reduces the evaluation cost for operators and increases their confidence in the geological potential of offered blocks.

ANPG has invested in speculative seismic acquisition across underexplored basins and made data packages available to international operators through road shows, industry conferences, and bilateral engagement. The effectiveness of this marketing effort, measured by the number of companies requesting data room access and the quality of bids submitted, provides a direct indicator of Angola’s competitiveness in the global exploration capital market. International petroleum conferences including the Africa Oil Week, NAPE, and AAPG conventions serve as platforms for ANPG to engage prospective bidders and build awareness of Angola’s exploration opportunities alongside competitive offerings from Namibia, Suriname, and other frontier basins.