Company-owned by ex-Angolan vice president Manuel Vicente is said to have profited three billion US dollars from the transaction of two oil blocks that had been ceded at no cost by the company Sonangol.
According to the bank statements consulted by the Lusa agency, the company Nazaki Oil & Gaz, SA, owned by Manuel Vicente, when he was president of the Angolan state-owned company, is said to have profited the equivalent of 2.53 billion euros from the deal that involved the Sonangol and the American company Cobalt.
The bank statements have the dates of December 28, 2012, and January 28, 2013, as well as a third transfer, also from Sonangol with the date of November 25, 2013.
The operation has already been the subject of investigations by the American authorities, who analyzed the acquisition in 2009 by Sonangol of two Angolan oil blocks that the state company had previously offered “at no cost” to a company owned by Manuel Vicente.
The 2009 investigation consists of documents that make up the court case (nº4: 14-cv-83428) of the Houston Division of the United States District Court Southern District of the US State of Texas including the involvement of Cobalt, a Goldman Sachs group company, but that did not mention the values involved.
The documents established the involvement of Cobalt, a company based in Texas, in connection with Nazaki Oil & Gaz, SA, which in turn belonged to senior officials of the Angolan State (Politically Exposed Person), including Manuel Vicente himself. will have “acquired” 30% of the 9/09 and 21/09 blocks of the Angolan offshore.
In 2009, the Angolan national concessionaire (Sonangol EP) chaired by Manuel Vicente “makes a donation” to a company owned by Manuel Vicente himself: Nazaki Oil & Gaz, SA.
After four years, in 2013, Manuel Vicente and partners at Nazaki sell to Sonangol for the US $ 1.5 billion-plus expenses the same blocks that had been offered by the Angolan state company.
On January 1, 2013, Sonangol, at the time chaired by Francisco Lemos José Maria, current president of the Angolan Debt and Securities Exchange and Nazaki entered into a purchase and sale agreement in which the parties agreed to transfer 15% of the participatory interests in the blocks for the price of 1.5 million (USD).
In Article 3 (b) and (c) of the contract, it is stated that the amount of 1,000,000,000 (one billion US dollars) would have already been paid and the remaining 500,000,000 (five hundred million US dollars) would be paid in the future, “At a time to be agreed by the parties”.
According to the extracts from Sonangol’s accounts consulted by Lusa, several transfers were made to Nazaki’s bank account, through an account domiciled at Banco Angolano de Investimentos.
The operation is referred to in Decree-Laws No. 14/09 and 15/09 both of June 11, 2009, in which the Angolan Executive grants Sonangol exclusive mining rights for the exercise of hydrocarbon research, prospecting, development and production liquid and gaseous in the respective concession areas of blocks 9/09 and 21/09 and two consortia were created for the purposes of the operation.
One of the consortia is established with Cobalt International Energy LP – an American company majority-owned by the financial group Goldman Sachs.
