1.
GV Ships in Luanda harbour
0.06

2.
SV PAN Oil storage tanks and Petragol Refinery, Luanda
0.22

3.
GV Storage cylinders
0.26

4.
MV PAN Oil drums
0.34

5.
CU Oil valve pumping mechanism
0.38

6.
SV Refinery installations
0.42

7.
MV Angolan and Cuban workers (3 shots)
0.54

8.
SV Refinery
1.02


Some 50 per cent of marketed food, including maize is now having to be imported into Angola. Subsistence agriculture, an integral part of the Angolan basic economy has been disrupted by years of internal strife. Of the 6,000 Portuguese estates abandoned, only about 1,5000 have been taken over as a part of MPLA's massive nationalisation programme. All these factors make the continued efficiency of the oil industry imperative.




Initials BB/1800



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Since the conclusion of the Angolan war in 1975 the Angolan government has been faced with problem in reconstructing the country's shattered economy. At the same time there has been internal strife as President Agostinho Neto's regime is threatened by the FNLA guerrilla movement of Holden Roberto in the north and by the UNITA forces of Jonas Savimbi in the south. One of the country's major economic problems has been to achieve the export revenue it had before the war to bring back much-needed foreign currency. During the past two years the nation's growing oil industry has been virtually the only comparatively stable and productive part of the Angolan economy.

SYNOPSIS: The nationalised oil industry has had to take on the main responsibility of providing Angola with foreign revenue. Under the last years of colonialism, oil exports provided 40 per cent of Angola's foreign exchange. But the collapse of the country's other exporting industries including coffee, maize and diamonds drove the figure up to 80 per cent in 1976.

This is rare film of the Petragol refinery in Luanda. One encouraging statistic shows that Gulf Oil's Cabinda refinery has remained at its 1973 production level of 150,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Petragol and Gulf Oil are the two principal export operations.

The Angolans were hard hit by the exodus of Portuguese technicians and Cuban experts have been instrumental in keeping the oil industry operative. And though the United States has not formally recognised the Neto regime, it has been the American-based company Gulf Oil whose royalties from Cabinda oil have helped keep the Angolan economy afloat.