Angolan oil minister to skip Nov. 26 OPEC+ meeting: sources

The OPEC+ alliance's closely watched Nov. 26 meeting in Vienna will be missing Angola's oil minister, with Diamantino Azevedo set to sit out what are shaping up to be contentious discussions over slashing African members' production quotas, S&P Global Commodity Insights has learned.

News of the apparent no-show comes five months after Azevedo stormed out of the OPEC+ meeting in June after hours of tense debates over African production capacity and could expose another rift in the growing divide between the alliance's haves and have-nots.

The Nov. 26 meeting is expected to see cuts to Angola's 2024 production quota, and those of other African members including Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Republic of Congo, which have failed to reach production targets in recent years.

Angola's quota currently stands at 1.46 million b/d, but the country produced just 1.15 million b/d in October, according to the Platts OPEC Survey and energy regulator ANPG.

That is a slight increase on the five months preceding the last OPEC meeting, when sub-Saharan Africa's second-largest producer behind Nigeria pumped just 1.08 million b/d of crude on average.

Like other African members, Angola agreed that its 2024 quota would be reduced -- by 180,000 b/d to 1.28 million b/d -- unless it could demonstrate significantly higher production by November's meeting as judged by S&P Global Commodity Insights and upstream consultancies Rystad and Wood Mackenzie.

Having failed to do so, Angola is on course for a likely quota reduction. African members say cuts could reduce vital investment in their oil and gas sectors just as they are struggling to boost output.

Meanwhile, the UAE is set for a 200,000 b/d quota uplift, according to the June meeting's communique.

A spokesperson for the Angolan minister's office told S&P Global in recent days that Azevedo would not be attending the meeting in Vienna but declined to comment on the reason. The official could not be reached for confirmation Nov. 20.

The Angolan oil ministry in Luanda did not respond to a request for comment.

However, a well-placed source said: "I think [Azevedo] wasn't very happy about the last meeting, so I think it's his own way of basically saying, I'm not happy the way things are."

"Diamantino is very, very committed to OPEC," the source added. "Angola is going to be very solid behind OPEC. But there are some issues. They need to have a family talk about these issues around the baseline."

Representatives for the OPEC secretariat declined to comment on Azevedo's apparent no-show.

OPEC's secretary-general, Haitham al-Ghais, traveled to Angola in September. Ghais has expressed his intention to expand the group to give OPEC greater market share.

Falling output

Angola has seen output fall consistently from a peak of 1.9 million b/d in 2008, due primarily to underinvestment, technical problems at aging oil fields, a dearth of exploration activity and a string of departures by oil majors.

While production has flagged, Angola has drawn praise from oil executives for its investment climate and eagerness to update fiscal terms, and has seen an influx of small independents looking to eke production out of mature basins.

Ministers gathering in Vienna Nov. 26 are facing market volatility, large-scale wars in Europe and the Middle East, and falling oil prices, leading to speculation of further production cuts.