Angola and the road ahead
The legal services market and its ties with Angola and Portugal can be traced as far back as the 1980s. As well as analysing opportunities for foreign investors, Iberian Lawyer hears from some of the leading experts in their legal field
Image: Rita Correia, founding partner of Miranda & Associados; Alberto Galhardo Simões, partner and head of the Lusophone Africa practice team at CMS Portugal; José Miguel Oliveira, partner of the Oil & Gas practice group and responsible for the shipping practice at VdA; and Rui Andrade, partner at Melo Alves.
by michael heron
Portugal’s historical relationship with Angola is a long and complicated one. It is the second-largest Lusophone speaking country in the world and achieved independence in 1975 as a one-party Republic. The country then descended into a devastating civil war which lasted until 2002. After the turn of the millennium and this period under the presidency of Eduardo dos Santos, Angola experienced the oil boom years.
History
When Portugal is referred to as a gateway for doing business in Angola, one man and one law firm were the early pioneers in creating this link. Miranda. Angola’s oil industry saw its inception at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1910, the Portuguese colonial administration of the day granted a concession of 114,000 km2 in the Kwanza and Congo Basins to Companhia Canha e Formigal, and drilling began five years later. Following several decades of tepid activity, the Belgian oil company Petrofina made the first commercial discovery in 1955 (Benfica II well, south of Luanda1) and partnered with the Portuguese colonial government to establish Fina Petróleos de Angola (Petrangol) and to construct the Luanda refinery. This then attracted the interest of several other IOCs, notably Chevron.
Agostinho Pereira de Miranda was raised in Angola and lived there until his 20s. He then went to University in Portugal before joining Chevron in the US as in-house counsel in the 1980s. He was responsible for the company’s Angola projects for six years before returning to Portugal to set up his own law practice in 1987. Chevron was in fact the firm’s first client. The rest were also oil and gas companies and contractors in Angola. Rita Correia joined as a junior lawyer in 1988, and she remains a partner at the firm to this day. She is arguably the go to lawyer for the oil & gas sector in Angola, especially when it comes to tax. One of the lazy criticisms levied towards Angola, is why the country failed to diversify its economy during the oil boom years. Correia responds by saying, “Diversifying is not an easy task. You can only diversify an economy when you have the proper infrastructure in place (roads, plants, power transmission structures, etc.), and part of this infrastructure was destroyed or poorly maintained during the civil war.
The diversification challenge
The Lobito Corridor consists of a 1,300 km railway line, through Angola from the Atlantic Ocean to the country’s borders with the DRC and Zambia. The Corridor has seen a resurgence in interest in recent months, as evidenced by the signing of MoUs and agreements, most of which concern the development of the Corridor and activities related to green and clean energy technologies, in particular EV battery value chain products. Rita Correia argues this infrastructure is critical in allowing the Angolan economy to diversify but explains why there is still a long way to go: “International competition in commodities markets (where Angola would have more potential in the short term) is very intense. By way of example, competing at an international level in the tropical fruits market requires a very efficient value chain and resilient supply chains. Brazil has been doing this for the last 40 years, while Angola only now starts to have the infrastructures (such as the Lobito Corridor) allowing for large scale agricultural projects.
