Luanda - The Angolan economy loses more than 14 billion US dollars a year on imports of foreign labor, equipment and specialized services used in the country's oil industry, the director general of Petroangola, Patrício Quingongo, said Thursday in Luanda.
Speaking to the press on the sidelines of the 4th Annual Conference on Local Content, the specialist in International Oil and Gas Management added that most of this expenditure has been used to pay the salaries of foreign technicians, import spare parts, among other materials and services in the oil sector.
He explained that this amount leaves Angola to feed the economies of other countries, essentially due to a shortage of local skilled labor and a lack of technical training for Angolan staff in oil industry services.
“Unfortunately, the Angolan oil industry is still dominated by foreign companies and citizens, from the minimum to the maximum services, because the country has almost no specialized training centers to train national technicians in this field,” Quingongo said.
In view of the current situation, Patrício Quingongo defends the need for Angola to invest “heavily in the technical training of national human capital,” in order to obtain the benefits of local content in the short term.
He stressed that the country must ensure that Angolans are the center and greatest force in the national oil industry, which still relies on around 98% foreign specialists.
To this end, he continued, it is essential to invest heavily in professional technical training, through the creation of training centers and universities of the desired quality and dedicated solely to the oil and gas industry.
According to the expert, once this challenge is overcome, Angola, which already has more than 50 years' experience in the sector, will be able to export knowledge to neighboring countries that operate in this segment in particular.
The vice-president of the Association of Contracted Companies in the Angolan Oil Industry (AECIPA), Luís de Carvalho, on his turn, defended the need for a joint effort between operators and the government to stabilize national companies and ensure competitiveness with foreign companies.
The Annual Conference on Local Content promoted by Petroangola, is a technical-regulatory event for the oil and gas industry that promotes high-level debates on policies, development and the future of national professionals.
Petroangola is an Angolan consulting company specialized in oil and gas. It is the owner of the first African website specialized in oil, gas and renewable energies. OPF/QCB/AMP
