The Sociedade Nacional de Combustíveis de Angola (Sonangol) plans to exploit five oil blocs on land, four of them in the Cuanza Basin and a fifth in the Congo Basin, indicates a presidential decree cited by the Bloomberg financial agency.

According to the decree, Sonangol must assure 50 percent of the exploitation of four other blocs in the Cuanza Basin, of the total of ten to be auctioned in 2014.

Angola’s blocs on land tend to be cheaper to exploit than the off-shore blocs, which are dominated by Total, Chevron, Exxon and BP and account for most of the 1.7 million barrels of crude oil produced daily.

The document also determines that the Angolan state will provide financial support to private domestic companies that want to develop the exploitation of these blocs on land.

Sonangol previously divided the Cuanza Basin into 23 concessions, each measuring a thousand square kilometres, some of them within the limits of Kissama National Park. (macauhub)