Angola: Sonangol drops Cobalt purchase

Sonangol has said it will not go ahead with the planned purchase of Cobalt International Energy’s 40% stake in blocks 20 and 21. The parastatal is undergoing restructuring to enable it to cope with a sharply lower oil price and announced after a meeting in June of its new board that it was suspending all talks relating to the sale of assets. An agreement for Cobalt to sell its stakes to Sonangol for $1.75bn was announced in August 2015. Cobalt said in its Q2 operational update that chief executive Tim Cutt met Sonangol board chair Isabel dos Santos and her executive team in Luanda in late July to discuss the sale.