Angolan state oil company Sonangol awarded its rare refined products buy tender to Glencore and Total, Sonangol said on Friday, cutting out long-time supplier Trafigura.
Total will supply Angola with gasoline while Glencore will supply diesel and marine diesel. Sonangol issued the tender in January.
For years Trafigura had an effective monopoly on lucrative fuel supply deals with OPEC member Angola, though Vitol edged in two years ago by taking over the gasoline imports.
Links between Trafigura and Angola stretch beyond fuel imports, with Sonangol and Angolan company Cochan Holdings having the significant stakes in trader’s global midstream and downstream business Puma Energy.
The choice to give the lion’s share of imports to other trade houses is a significant change under the country’s new president Joao Lourenco.
Shortly after taking office in September, Lourenco said he was committed to economic reforms and ordered a review of the country’s oil industry.
He has already shaken up the old order by pushing out prominent figures from key state roles, including the former president’s daughter Isabel dos Santos, who was head of Sonangol.
In Friday’s statement Sonangol said that it had received bids from 20 companies and that the contract would last one year, with an option for a nine-month extension.
Sonangol added that the new tender award would bring a significant reduction in fuel import costs.
The tender closed on Jan. 31, having sought 1.2 million tonnes of gasoline, 2.1 million tonne of gasoil and 480,000 tonnes of marine fuel.
Heavily reliant on oil sales for government income, Angola was hit hard by the 2014 oil price crash, which pushed its economy into recession and created foreign currency shortages that crippled business.
