Mar 16, 2017
US regulator probes Angolan deal involving BP
US regulators are probing an Angolan oil deal in which BP and a Texan partner agreed to pay $350m to fund a research centre that has yet to materialise. Under a December 2011 deal to secure rights to explore for oil under southern-Africa's oil-rich seabed, Cobalt and BP agreed jointly to make $350m in payments in instalments over four years to pay for a centre run by Sonangol, the Angolan state oil group. Under the deal for Block 20 - which lies to the south of BP's prodigious Greater Plutonio project - Cobalt and BP agreed to pay a $7.5m lump sum and $200m for social projects on top of the $350m for the research centre. In February US prosecutors dropped a five-year corruption investigation stemming from revelations that Cobalt's local partner in a separate Angolan oil deal had been secretly owned by some of the country's most powerful officials. In 2015 Cobalt reached a deal to sell out its interests in Angola to Sonangol for $1.75bn but the agreement fell through.
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