Russia and Angola vow to bolster energy ties

LUANDA – Russia and Angola vowed to work together in areas ranging from energy to mining and the telecommunications sectors in a bid to bolster ties between the former Cold War allies.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Angola, the first to the African nation by a Russian head of state, follows stops in Egypt, Nigeria and Namibia where he faces tough competition from China and the United States for resources.

Standing next to Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, Medvedev said Russian state-oil company Zarubezhneft and Angolan state-run oil firm Sonangol were in talks to explore for hydrocarbon deposits.

“We also discussed cooperation in other areas and hope we can realise projects that are worthy of the new age,” he said. One such project is Russia’s funding of the construction of two major dams in Angola’s Kwanza river.

Another is a $300 million Russian loan to improve Angola’s telecommunications sector with the launch of a satellite branded Angosat. Both countries signed a total of six agreements to cooperate in several sectors of the economy in hopes of increasing trade between them which stood at just $76 million last year.

“We hope the signing of these agreements will bolster ties between the two nations,” Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who studied in the former Soviet Union and speaks fluent Russian, told journalists.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and Cuba backed Angola’s ruling MPLA party while the United States and apartheid-South Africa supported rebels from UNITA. Scores of military advisers came to Angola during the early years of the country’s 1975-2002 civil war and some of Angola’s top military officials were trained in Moscow.

When the Cold War ended, links between the two nations weakened. The MPLA dropped its Marxist ideologies and turned to capitalism as the country’s oil production soared.

Today, Russia is the worlds biggest oil producer and Angola, which holds the rotating presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), emerged from the civil war to rival Nigeria as Africa’s top oil producer.

Angola is also the world’s fifth biggest diamond producer and Russian state diamond miner Alrosa has stakes in two joint mining ventures, Catoca and LUO-Camatchia-Camagico. Alrosa has said it wants to invest in other sectors in Angola also. Presidents Medvedev and Dos Santos also agreed Friday to boost cooperation on world energy markets.

“Coordination of our actions on the world energy markets is important,” Medvedev said.

“I am confident that if we will act together we will achieve great success.”

Speaking after talks with Dos Santos, Medvedev said the current price formation on the world oil market was “complex and nontransparent” and the two leaders adopted a joint communique pledging to “deepen dialogue” on energy.

Dos Santos said he was interested in Medvedev’s recent proposals for new rules for the global energy market – ideas that have received a lukewarm welcome in the West – adding Angola would “make its own contribution.”

Medvedev’s African tour yielded a 10-year strategic agreement with Egypt and deals worth more than three billion dollars.

In Windhoek, gas giant Gazprom’s banking unit struck a deal with Namibia’s energy company Namcor worth more than one billion dollars to build a power plant, in return getting a foothold in the lucrative Kudu gas field, Namibia’s only commercial field to date.

In Nigeria, Medvedev oversaw the signing of a deal under which Gazprom and Nigeria’s state oil firm NNPC will invest at least 2,5 billion dollars to develop some of Africa’s largest oil and gas reserves.