Minister of Mineral Resources, Petroleum and Gas acknowledges a “worrying situation” and a crisis at the pumps
The Angolan government acknowledged on Thursday that the state oil company Sonangol is facing financial difficulties in securing the country’s fuel supply, in a situation the Minister of Mineral Resources, Petroleum and Gas, Diamantino Azevedo, described as “worrying”.
The official was speaking in Luanda at the Women in Oil & Gas Forum, in remarks quoted by Rádio Nacional de Angola.
“We are in a crisis”
“We are in a crisis, there is little fuel in the country,” the minister said, pointing to rising domestic consumption, higher prices on the international market and the scarcity of the product as factors behind the current disruption.
Diamantino Azevedo stressed that the whole country is now worried about the fuel situation and gave assurances that the problem is being addressed, linking Sonangol’s cash-flow difficulties to logistical constraints as well.
The minister noted that Angola currently has the fourth-lowest oil product prices in Africa, an argument the executive has used to justify the gradual removal of subsidies.
The bill Sonangol cannot pay
The public admission that the company lacks the financial means to guarantee imports again highlights the structural problem in the national oil company’s accounts.
Sonangol imports refined products paying in foreign currency and sells them on the domestic market in kwanzas, at administered prices below the cost of acquisition — an imbalance that builds up on the company’s balance sheet with every cargo unloaded at Angolan ports.
Diamantino Azevedo himself revealed in July 2025 that the company was carrying bank debt of more than seven billion dollars related to fuel, a situation he then described as unsustainable as he argued for the progressive removal of subsidies. According to the minister, subsidies cost the state around three billion dollars in a single year and benefit those who need them and those who do not alike, while also fuelling smuggling to neighbouring countries, where fuel costs two to three times more.
The problem is not new. In May 2019, a supply crisis that produced long queues at filling stations in Luanda and Huambo led Sonangol to admit, in a statement, difficulties in accessing foreign currency to cover the cost of importing refined products, compounded by heavy debts owed by industrial customers, who account for around 40 per cent of national consumption.
A producer that imports what it consumes
Despite ranking among Africa’s largest oil producers, Angola remains dependent on imports of refined fuels because of insufficient installed refining capacity.
The country has a number of projects under way to reverse that dependence, among them the new Cabinda refinery, which came on stream in 2025 with a first phase of 30,000 barrels a day, and the Lobito refinery, designed for 200,000 barrels a day.
Until those units are fully operational, supplying the domestic market will continue to depend on Sonangol’s ability to pay, in foreign currency, for the fuel it sells in kwanzas.
08/06/2026
