Angola's First Satellite

Angola’s first communications satellite, AngoSat-1, will be launched into orbit in November 2016 to provide telecommunication services throughout the country, announced Aristides Safeca, State Secretary for Telecommunications. This will be the first satellite operated by an African nation and will have a lifetime of 15 years.

The project contract was signed in 2009 by Angola and a Russian consortium which included- Rocket Space Corporation Energiya (RSC), Telecom-Projeto 5 and Rosoboronexport companies. The construction began in November 2013.

With an investment of over USD 403 million, Angosat 1, will provide Angola with communications and digital terrestrial services, replacing the current analogue system along with telecommunication, internet and e-government services. While 31% of the construction work has been completed, the satellite will be fully operational by the first half of 2017. (NexTv)

Angola's Grand New City

A new city being built outside of the capital Luanda, Kilamba Kiaxi, is considered the largest social housing project & EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract in Africa and one of the newest, emergent Smart Cities. In the Kimbundu language the name means Land (Kiaxi) of Kilamba.

Built by the China International Trust and Investment Corporation, the city is designed to accommodate 500,000 people and includes 750 eight-story apartment blocks, occupying 880 hectares.

Located 20 km from the center of Luanda, the Kilamba project is the most advanced to date of the five new cities that are being built around Luanda alone and carries a price tag of $3.5bn.

Angolan officials are employing such a grand urban development scheme as a means of providing housing for the millions of Angolans who are without formal housing, 12 years after the end of the civil war.  During the war years, little social housing was built, with the result that ¾ of the 4.3 inhabitants of Luanda live in mussekes or informal settlements.

Constructing new city centers on the outskirts of existing cities is a new urban planning method employed to eliminate the difficulties involved in relocating populations who already live on development sites.

The Kilamba Kaixi buildings include 20,002 apartments and 246 shops, containing 24 (KG) kindergartens, 9 primary schools, 8 secondary schools, 2 substations, 1 sewage treatment plant and 1 water treatment plan, with primary & secondary municipal roads.  Beyond the normal municipal systems such as water supply, power supply, telecommunications, sewage, drainage, traffic signals, the original development plans entailed the integration of electronic systems to enable an Internet interconnectivity of housing and municipal systems. (Consolidated Consulting Group, African Business Magazine)

Angolan Training Boosts Human Capital

(Luanda) With seven children from his wife and another six fathered in distant provinces where he fought in the war, 54-year-old José Simão describes his life in the past as just "fighting and making babies”.  

In October he took a short masonry course at the Acreditar Luanda unit, which includes three classrooms, a laboratory and a library, and is located in Zango, one of the neighborhoods that is part of the Population Resettlement Program, a government initiative implemented by Odebrecht to relocate families displaced by urban redevelopment or unsafe housing.

Odebrecht is currently Angola's largest private employer, with some 20,000 workers hired directly. Ninety-three percent of its work force is made up of Angolans.

Odebrecht’s first work in Angola – the Capanda hydroelectric power plant – served “as a school to train an elite” group of technicians, who are currently holding senior positions in the government and in business, says Justino Amaro, the first Angolan to sit in Odebrecht Angola’s board of directors.

Training workers is an essential part of every project implemented by Odebrecht. As of mid 2012, 79,000 Angolans had benefited from the company’s training programmes. University student recruits receive special training and are groomed to occupy senior positions in the company.

In major projects, Odebrecht also offers technical training for the population living in the surrounding areas, preparing any interested young people – not just potential employees – for construction jobs. These technical courses are provided through the company’s Acreditar program, which so far has trained some 3,000 workers in its three Angola units.

Odebrecht’s corporate social responsibility actions, which include providing poor communities with running water, schools, electricity and recreational opportunities, bolster the cooperation-for-development image projected by the company through its construction activities.

This is especially valuable in Angola, a country that is still being built after 37 years of independent life, and which is undergoing a process of post-war reconstruction. (IPS News Agency)

Luanda's Grand, New Airport Project

Under current construction, Luanda’s new international airport is designed to be one of Africa's biggest and rival Johannesburg airport, in South Africa, as a traffic distribution hub for the region.   The new airport is being constructed some 40 kilometres outside the Angolan capital, in Bom Jesus, in the Viana municipal area, will have runways capable of receiving what is currently the largest passenger aircraft in the world, the Airbus A380.

“The size of the project, which is obvious from the length and layout of the runways, was decided in order to turn the airport into a hub that is capable of taking traffic away from Johannesburg airport destined for countries in Central and East Africa that use it for that purpose,” according to the Africa Monitor news service.

" The key idea,” it added, is that a big airport in Angola, “with a size capable of making it the second-largest facility of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa,” will be heavily used as a transit point for passengers traveling on to countries such as the democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo, Namibia, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya and even Tanzania. 

The new airport, which has been under construction since 2008, covers an area of almost 10,000 hectares and will have two double runways capable of landing the Airbus A380, 12 departure tunnels as well as restaurants, offices, a hotel nearby and a rail link to the capital city and, possibly, with the neighboring province of Malanje.  The new terminal building will have an area of 160,000 square meters (1.8 million square feet) to enable a capacity of up to 15 million passengers per year.   The area of the cargo terminal building will be 6,200 square meters, capable of handling of 35,000 tones of cargo per year.

Construction of the new airport is in the hands of a consortium of Chinese companies and Brazilian company Odebrecht and the first phase of the new airport may be concluded in 2012. (Africa Monitor)

Angola's Maritime Future; Developing Seamen

Angola has a long, thousand-mile coastline generally unaffected by the more dramatic weather conditions which make shipping difficult in many parts of the world.  Current Angolan maritime activities are concentrated in its busy and well-developed offshore oil industry. There is intense coastal traffic supplying oil exploration and production companies with equipment, transferring crews, and ferrying staff overseeing well-drilling operations or carrying out maintenance.  There are also regular oil-tanker loading operations which then take the precious cargo to markets all over the world.

Most of the vessels plying Angolan ports often operate exclusively in coastal waters for oil industry-related activities but use crews drawn from around the globe, with relatively few Angolans on board. The government plans to change this situation and bring greater Angolan access to these maritime jobs, creating a local seafaring industry. ‘Angolanisation’ is already making steady headway, with more indigenous crews being trained for the task.


Angola's merchant navy has seen concentrated, institutional development over the past ten years, thanks mainly to the efforts of Sonangol EP and Sonangol Shipping,  departments of the state-owned oil company.  Sonangol Shipping has partnered with Stena Bulk, part of the Swedish conglomerate Stena, and Chevron Shipping to provide shore-based training and professional employment opportunities for Angolan seamen.

Sonangol Shipping also operates its own cadet-training program, which has graduated over 40 deep-sea Deck and Engineering Officers since 1998. As originally structured, this programme provided the Sonangol cadets with the required English language and maritime academic training in India and in Scotland at the Glasgow College of Nautical Studies, now the City of Glasgow College (COGC). The Angolan cadet officers also receive on-board training on the Sonangol Suezmax tankers, all of which are built with extra cabins to accommodate them.

For the past several years, Sonangol and Stena have been collaborating on the development of the Angolan Maritime Training Centre (AMTC) in Sumbe, Angola, 350km south of Luanda. AMTC will be owned by Sonangol EP and operated in collaboration with COGC, which has been appointed academic manager. António Pelé Cardoso da Silva Neto will be the chief executive of AMTC.

It will provide complete training for maritime ratings, and the first year of academic training for deep-sea Deck and Engineer Officer cadets. It is anticipated that AMTC will eventually be able to provide the entire academic cycle of training in both deep-sea and restricted certification qualifications for cadets and ratings. It will have staff and student accommodation and aims to become an internationally-recognised centre of excellence, on a par with similar maritime centres around the globe.

Oil and gas-related shipping is not the only show in town. Another area with great development potential is Angola’s fishing fleet.  The country’s coast teems with underexploited fisheries and other seafood resources.

Angola TV to be Digitally Tuned!

Angola could become, in 2012, the first African country endowed with a state-of-art Japanese digital TV system to be installed within the framework of cooperation with the Country of Japan.The news of this project was confirmed on December 23 of last week by the Japanese ambassador to Angola, Ryozo Myoi, after meeting with the Vice President of Angola, Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos.  Japan has installed a similar system in Brazil in 2006, and represents the most advanced terms of television broadcast technology.    The project has been approved by the international telecommunications organizations and pending the finals approvals of the Angolan government, will be initiated in 2012.

The Japanese digital TV system called ISDB (Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting Terrestrial) is touted as the most flexible to respond better to the needs of mobility and portability. In addition to sending digital television signals,  the system allows transmission of data for mobile phones, computers and the websites of television programs, among other possibilities.The Japanese ambassador said, however, which are in final negotiations for an agreement on investment protection, considering the determinant to strengthen cooperation between the two countries.

Currently there are eight Japanese companies currently operating in Angola, but Ambassador Ryozo Myoi is confident that this number will increase rapidly with the signing of investment protection protocol, recognizing the market entry of Angolan banks into Japan. The diplomat said that Angola annually exports to Japan about 20 million dollars in oil, while the reverse turnover stands at 200 million, primarily in the motor vehicle trade.  

Big Oil!

On November 1, the Angolan Minister of Industry, Botelho de Vasconcelos, officially inaugurated the world's largest, floating oil platform in the world, named Pazflor.  Having a potential production capacity of 220,000 barrels of oil per day at a construction cost of some $9 billion, the unit is operated by the oil company Total.

Total began production on its new Pazflor project offshore Angola in August. Oil fields on the venture, which have estimated total reserves of 590m barrels, lie in water depths of between 600 and 1,200 metres and so add to Angola's growing list of deepwater and ultra-deepwater projects.

Standard oil rigs cannot be used in such deep water because they cannot be fixed to the sea bed and so oil companies use ships known as floating, production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels to tap deepwater fields.

Oil is pumped up into FPSOs and then stored until it can be transferred to waiting oil tankers for distribution. Although expensive, such operations remove the need to pipe oil onshore for shipping and allow oil to be tapped in water depths that would otherwise be beyond conventional oil production methods.

According to Total, the FPSO on Pazflor is the biggest in the world, measuring 325 metres by 62 metres with a weight of more than 120,000 tonnes. With storage capacity of 1.9m barrels per day, it could hold Angola's entire production for a single day. 

Production will be gradually increased to 220,000 b/d on 49 wells. Total E&P Angola operates the project with a 40% stake, with the remaining equity held by Statoil (23.33%), Esso Exploration Angola (20%) and BP Exploration Angola (16.67%). Most of the world's biggest oil companies are involved in one jumbo Angolan oil project or another. (ANGOP, APA News southern Africa)

Google In Angola

Google, the largest research company in the internet world, plans to soon open an office in Angola as confirmed by Google's vice president for Research and Development for Europe and Africa, Nelson Mattos.

Mattos emphasized that the purpose of Google in Angola is to develop policy which facilitates internet access to everyone without exception.  "We intend to increase the number of internet users in Angola to facilitate access to research," he said.  The company intends to make an investment in terms of infrastructure in partnership with the Angolan Government to bring new products which help the technological development of the country.

In Africa, only 9% of the population has internet access, while access in Europe and America reaches more than 80%.  The only African countries where Google has offices are South Africa, Ghana, Senegal, Kenya, Uganda, Egypt and Nigeria.

The Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technologies in Angola, Pedro Teta responds, "We are hopeful that the new Google products that are launched in the Angolan market will generate results and spur the growth of IT companies operating in our country. (Angonoticias)

Building Blocks for a Nation

In 2010, the country of Angola imported more than 14 million tonnes of goods, of which 19% or 2 million long tonnes were of cement (2 billion kgs or 2.2 short tons).   Given that Angola is involved in a massive nation-wide infrastructure rebuilding project after almost 30 years of civil war, this importation and consumption of cement places the country with the 10 top global countries of cement consumption.  The predominant share of these cement imports arrive from neighboring Namibia and from China which is involved in many of the largest infrastructure rebuilding projects.


Angola has its own burgeoning cement production industry which is rebuilding and ramping up production with the aid of over $500 million in foreign direct investment.  An Angolan Government plan has been initiated to construct six new Angolan cement plants in the next three year to build up the national industry, reduce imports and to capitalize on the country's large natural deposits of limestone, sandstone and clay; all key ingredients for the production of cement. (compiled from Angop)

Clearing the Land of Landmines

(ANGOP) A total of 99,980 kilometres of road have been cleared of landmines around Angola from 1996 to Q1 of 2011 as confirmed by Angola Social Welfare minister, João Baptista Kussumua. The minister was chairing the opening of the 3rd National Meeting on Demining, in representation of the Angolan head of State, José Eduardo dos Santos. 

Millions of landmines were laid in Angola during the 27 years of bitter conflict that followed independence from Portugal in 1975.  Government and Cuban forces laid extensive minefields around their bases in and around towns as well as around infrastructure such as airports, water supply stations, electrical pylons and bridges.

 Both the Government and opposing UNITA forces laid a significant number of anti-tank mines on primary, secondary and tertiary roads and to this day anti-tank mines on roads pose a far greater problem than in any other mine affected country.

The Minister also confirmed that another 3,200 kilometres of railway have been cleared of mines, including 6,016 kilometres of fiber-optic and 5,571 of electricity conveying line. In the reporting period, a total of 930,191,457 square metres have been cleared involving the clearing of a sum total of 428,274 anti-personnel landmines of which 23,384 were anti-tank mines and 2.3 million were unexploded ordnances.

Also cleared were 2.7 million kilograms of lethal material, plus 3.7 million kilograms of assorted materials. He said that despite the excellent results achieved in the process, the threat of landmines continues, putting flow of people and goods and certain areas of the national territory at permanent risk.

A British NGO, The Halo Trust, the world's oldest and largest humanitarian landmine clearance organization, has been instrumental in clearing a majority of these mines in Angola. Halo has conducted extensive surveys of the five provinces in which it operates in Angola and, as of June 2010, has confirmed 778 minefields that require clearance. http://www.halousa.org/home/index.aspx (Angop, The Halo Trust)