Nowadays, Angola Is Oil’s Topic A

A corrupt, underdeveloped and war-scarred country, Angola is one of the poorest lands on earth. But ask any energy executive these days and another picture emerges: a place of immense riches, solicitous of foreign investors and among the three fastest-growing oil exporters in the world today.

In the capital, Luanda, hotel rooms cost more than $200 a night and are booked two months in advance by the oil companies; three times a week, nonstop charter flights known as the Houston Express ferry workers to and from Texas; offshore, dozens of oil fields have been discovered and given names like Cola and Canela.

Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP and others have poured billions into Angola in the last decade to unlock petroleum resources in the country’s deep waters, where the vast majority of the oil is, and the payoffs are finally coming in.

In recent years, Angola has become the fastest-growing source of oil exports to the United States and, along with Nigeria and smaller West African countries, it is about to become an important component of American energy security.

Within three years, producing nations in western Africa will account for one of every three new barrels pumped worldwide. By 2015, the United States is projected to import a quarter of its oil from Africa, up from 15 percent today.

Angola’s promise stems from a series of big discoveries some 100 miles offshore, which have increased the country’s oil production tenfold since the mid-1970s, to 1.5 million barrels a day in 2006. Next year, Angola is expected to reach two million barrels daily and by 2011, 2.6 million barrels, the equivalent of Kuwait’s output.

But Angola is finding itself at the crossroads of today’s energy geopolitics. It has become the latest stage in a global rivalry playing out among Western, Russian and Chinese oil companies. This year, it joined the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which has been paring global supplies to keep prices from falling below $50 a barrel.

China has identified this country as a promising source in its rush for energy resources, providing billions in loans and development aid in return for favorable treatment of its oil interests. Last year, Angola overtook Saudi Arabia as the largest oil supplier to the Chinese. It is currently the sixth-biggest exporter to the United States.

The Angolan government seems emboldened by its new status as a member of the small club of big oil producers. The decision to join OPEC baffled energy analysts because it implied that Angola might have to slow its growth just when it seemed to be hitting the jackpot in oil.

But Angolan officials showed no signs of restraint when they appeared in Vienna for their first OPEC meeting. “We’ve been wanting this for a long time,” said the oil minister, Desidério da Costa, a long-faced technocrat who has been involved in the country’s energy sector since 1976. Manuel Vicente, the chairman of Sonangol, the national oil company, added, “It means we’re a real exporter now.” Western executives say OPEC membership is unlikely to affect their investments.

For consumers, relying on such volatile parts of the world where democratic institutions are weak and oversight of oil revenue is limited, could spell trouble. In the next decade, 70 percent of world oil production will be concentrated in 15 countries, compared with 55 percent today, according to Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

And Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultant in New York, said, “Energy sources are going to come from increasingly unstable regions in the world.”

The Gulf of Guinea has some of the world’s greatest untapped oil reserves. From 1995 to 2005, western Africa accounted for 5 percent of all wells drilled worldwide but 21 percent of discoveries. Half of them were made in Angolan territory. Africa’s new importance has recently led to the creation of a separate Africa Command at the Pentagon.

“It’s a good story for consumers,” George L. Kirkland, a senior executive at Chevron, said. “The greater the diversity, the less your risk ― not just political, but also technical and commercial.”

Angola has about 11.4 billion barrels of proven reserves, according to Wood Mackenzie, an energy consulting firm in Edinburgh ― about the same as Brazil or Algeria, two medium-size producers, though much less than reserves in the Persian Gulf region.

But it is more than enough for big projects. Total has made 15 oil discoveries in Angola’s Block 17, about 100 miles offshore, since it began drilling there in the 1990s.

Since 2001, it has been producing 250,000 barrels a day from a Block 17 field called Girassol and plans to ramp up its output to 500,000 barrels a day by the summer with a $4 billion development named Dalia. Farther out, in the deeper waters of Block 32, Total has announced eight discoveries since 2003, including three so far this year ― Manjericão, Caril and Salsa.

Exxon Mobil and its partners produce more than 550,000 barrels a day, after having completed two $7 billion projects offshore, Kizomba A and Kizomba B in Block 15. In 2008, the company plans to bring on a third big field, Kizomba C.

And Chevron, which expects to double its western Africa production in the next four years, is planning an ambitious liquefied natural gas partnership in Angola with Sonangol that is projected to bring gas supplies to the United States in a few years. These projects are likely to make Angola much richer in coming years. But what the government in Luanda does with its oil wealth and where the money goes have long been frustrating matters for human rights groups. In 2001, for instance, Angola chastised BP for disclosing a $111 million fee without the government’s approval.

After that, officials clashed with the International Monetary Fund over opening the books to scrutiny. From 1997 to 2002, $4.2 billion was unaccounted for, according to an estimate by Human Rights Watch.

Since the war ended around five years ago, the Angolan government has made some progress in improving transparency. It publishes more details about its oil revenue and production and posts some of the data on the finance ministry Web site, though it is often out of date.

But Angola still fails to disclose how it spends money, including its budget. It ranks 142nd among 163 countries in Transparency International’s annual corruption perception index.

“Angola has no interest in transparency and there is no source of external leverage on the government right now,” said Monica Enfield, an analyst at PFC Energy, a consulting firm in Washington. “With all their oil revenue, they don’t need the I.M.F. or the World Bank. They can play the Chinese off the Americans.”