Africa-Press – Angola. Oil businessman Pedro Godinho defended this Thursday, in Luanda, that Angola’s departure from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) “will not negatively impact the business environment” in this sector.
According to the source, regarding the Angolan Government’s decision to abandon the organization, the country’s “target is to produce 1 million and 800 thousand barrels of oil per day in the near future”, which could reduce the impact of the losses.
Pedro Godinho understands that Angola should already announce its withdrawal in 2015, when its production capacity was below the quota established by OPEC.
The president of the United States of America – Angola Chamber of Commerce also highlighted that the country had time to leave OPEC when “it was not in a position to reach the established quota of 1 million and 200 thousand barrels per day”, between 2018 and 2020.
“OPEC works like a group of friends who decided to come together to form an organization, whose essential objective is to influence the price of crude oil on the world market, with the commitment of each member to sacrifice the cut in their production and contribute financially to development of the organization”, he lamented.
Angola’s decision to leave OPEC, which it voluntarily joined in 2006, has already been transformed into a Decree-Law, signed by President João Lourenço.
The decision comes after the 36th Ministerial Meeting of OPEC and its allies, held on November 30th this year, via video conference, which resulted in Angola being allocated a production quota of 1,110 million barrels of crude oil per day.
In this regard, the Minister of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas (MIREMPET), Diamantino Azevedo, explained that the decision was not taken unanimously and contradicted Angola’s position, meaning that the Angolan Government reiterated its proposal to produce 1,180 million barrels of crude oil per day in the year 2024.
Following this, Angola, which has fully complied with all its OPEC obligations for 16 years, sent a note of protest to the organization’s General Secretariat.
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