Angola: Africa’s Second Largest Oil Producer, Angola, Quits OPEC

Africa’s second-largest oil producer and a member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Angola, has announced its decision to leave the cartel, claiming the group is not serving the interest of the Central African nation.

The decision to leave OPEC, according to Angolan News Agency, was taken at a meeting of the Council of Ministers led by the President of the Republic, João Lourenço on Thursday, December 21, 2023.

The Minister of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas, Diamantino de Azevedo, said the decision to leave was because OPEC membership was not serving Angola’s interests.

“We feel that at the moment Angola does not gain anything by remaining in the organization and, in defense of its interests, it has decided to leave,” he said.

“When we are in the organizations and our contributions, our ideas, do not produce any effect, the best thing is to exit”, he added.

In a WhatsApp chat to find out whether Angola had notified OPEC about its decision to leave the group, Mr Shakir Mahmoud A. Al Rifaiey, Head of the Office of the Secretary-General, told energynewsafrica.com that they only heard about Angola’s decision via media report, and said that the group had not received any official document from Angola to that effect.

He could not tell whether the exit of Angola would affect the group or not.

Angola has been a member of OPEC since 2006, and produces about 1.1 million barrels of oil per day, compared with 28 million bpd for the whole group.

Last month, Azevedo’s office protested a decision by OPEC to cut its production quota for 2024.

Bloomberg also quoted Angola’s OPEC Governor Estevao Pedro as saying the country was unhappy with its 2024 target and did not plan to stick to it.

OPEC is an intergovernmental organization of 13 nations, founded on September 15, 1960 in Baghdad by the five founding members (Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela).

It has been headquartered since 1965 in Vienna, Austria, and as of September 2018, the 14 member countries accounted for 44% of global oil production and 81.5% of the world’s proven reserves.

Source: https://energynewsafrica.com