Angolan crude output inches up but remains subdued in May

Latest reading: Brent crude oil prices averaged USD 64.09 per barrel in May, down 4.2% from April. On 30 May, the commodity traded at USD 63.92 per barrel, down 0.6% from 30 April, as OPEC+ announced plans for larger output hikes ahead. That said, prices rose in recent weeks due to the Iran–Israel conflict. On the production front, Angolan oil output inched up to 1.02 million barrels per day (mbpd) in May from April’s 1.00 mbpd, underperforming the 1.17 mbpd expected by national oil firm ANPG. Output remains well below the 2015–2024 average of 1.39 mbpd.

Outlook: Our panelists recently cut their 2025 crude output forecasts due to delays in new projects. As a result, oil production is now seen waning slightly from 2024’s average and remaining below its past-decade average through 2029, as maturing oil fields and years of underinvestment weigh on supply. Still, recovering investor interest in Angola’s hydrocarbons sector following the country’s exit from OPEC+ and government efforts to revamp the energy sector—via Angola’s 2020–2025 Hydrogen Exploration strategy—should cushion the downturn. Weaker-than-expected demand from China is a downside risk.

Panelist insight: Gerrit van Rooyen, analyst at Oxford Economics commented: “We project oil production to decrease by 6.6% [in 2025]. We previously projected a 1.0% increase in oil output this year, but TotalEnergies's Begonia and CLOV3 projects failed to come on stream as expected. The abovementioned projects are now expected to commence production in late 2025 or early 2026.”

How should you choose a forecaster if some are too optimistic while others are too pessimistic? FocusEconomics collects Angolan oil projections for the next ten years from a panel of 4 analysts at the leading national, regional and global forecast institutions. These projections are then validated by our in-house team of economists and data analysts and averaged to provide one Consensus Forecast you can rely on for each indicator. By averaging all forecasts, upside and downside forecasting errors tend to cancel each other out, leading to the most reliable oil forecast available for Angolan oil.

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