"The task facing Angola’s state oil company, Sonangol, as it adjusts to lower revenues during the slump in oil prices, is complicated by a stratospheric debt burden which gives little room for manoeuvre. And yet the new administration is unexpectedly making repayment of one private debt a top priority.In spite of multiple pressing issues (including the root-and-branch restructuring of Sonangol) repayment of this particular debt has been fast-tracked by Sonangol’s new CEO, the President’s daughter Isabel dos Santos. A source close to the Sonangol board has told Maka Angola it’s the reason why Sonangol has been seeking a loan of US $800 million from a bank based in Egypt, offering as surety its shares in the Millenium BCP division of Portugal’s largest private bank, the Commercial Bank of Portugal (BCP). The urgent repayment? A one billion US dollar debt owed to Trafigura. This is the joint venture between the controversial Swiss multinational Trafigura, trading as the DT Group and Angola’s Cochan company. Trafigura exports Angolan crude, and then imports the refined fuels back into Angola, with a near monopoly on the import of petrol and diesel."
From Rafael Marques de Morais "Sonangol's Billion Dollar Headache" in MakaAngola
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