Angola’s State Gas Find Has No Development Plan

Angola’s Katambi-2 well flowed 41 million standard cubic feet of gas and 1,160 barrels of condensate a day during a test. But no development plan, partners, investment figure, reserve estimate or schedule for first gas has been made public. The national oil agency ANPG and state oil company Sonangol announced the results on August 6, 2026. For now, it’s a test result, not a producing field.

A state-controlled find, uncertain future

The well sits in Block 24 of the Benguela Basin, about 370 kilometres southwest of Luanda. Sonangol chairman Sebastião Gaspar Martins called Katambi-2 a “pure gas field” in an interview published by the Angolan weekly Novo Jornal on October 17, 2026. He described the discovery as a historic milestone for Angola’s oil sector and said gas was an important raw material in strong international demand.

Martins said Angola would use the gas for domestic needs first and might also export some. That’s a possibility, not a published plan. The account gives no details about who would develop the field, how much investment it would require, or when gas might reach consumers or trade routes. The state oil company and agency have announced a promising test, but they haven’t disclosed the decisions about turning it into production.

ANPG said an early assessment pointed to potential flow of more than 100 million cubic feet a day. That figure is an assessment, not the tested flow. The test itself recorded 41 million standard cubic feet a day, equivalent to about 1.16 million cubic metres daily, or roughly 15 billion cubic feet over a year if that rate were maintained.

The well found no water and no hydrogen sulphide. ANPG described it as Angola’s first full flow test of a non-associated gas reservoir, where gas is found separately rather than as a by-product of oil. Katambi-2 was drilled 1.3 kilometres from Katambi-1, an exploration well that BP drilled in 2014 and 2015.

Katambi-2 crossed two productive layers with a combined thickness of about 331 metres. Average porosity was 9% to 12%, and the well had better permeability than the first well. Those measurements describe the resource underground; they don’t answer who will control its development or when production might begin.

Fishing concerns meet corporate assurances

Sonangol said oil and gas work was compatible with fishing and ruled out negative effects on the fishing industry. Concerns about fish stocks along the Benguela coast have persisted since 2019, when Angola launched an international tender for offshore blocks. Sonangol offered its assurance, but the account includes no fishing-industry response or independent assessment of the claim.

No grassroots organizing, mutual aid or direct action appears in the account, and it reports no response from fishers. Those most directly connected to the coast appear mainly as the subject of a corporate assurance. The agencies and company, by contrast, announce the test and describe its potential.

Angola left OPEC on January 1, 2024, and produces about 1 million barrels of oil a day. The Lobito rail corridor, backed by the United States and linked to the Atlantic through the port of Lobito, is on the same coast. The well’s location places it within a region tied to existing oil production and trade routes, but the article doesn’t say Katambi-2 gas will use the corridor or be exported. Until a development plan appears, the gap between a headline-making flow test and any actual supply remains wide.