Angola mulling Norway-style oil fund: report

OSLO (Reuters) - Angola is considering setting up a Norwegian-style sovereign wealth fund to manage its oil revenues, Norwegian daily Aftenposten reported on Friday.

Angola has said it plans to have the new sovereign wealth fund ready to invest its oil money abroad this year but has yet to announce a date for its launch.

The management of oil revenues was a subject when Norway's Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere visited the country on Thursday, the paper said.

Aftenposten said Angola had studied the investment management of Norway's oil fund through a Norwegian development programme. The fund is meant to help the African nation save revenues to deal with the ups and downs in oil prices.

Angola rivals Nigeria as Africa's biggest oil producer and depends on oil for more than 90 percent of its exports.

It expects oil revenues to rise to $16.6 billion in 2010 from $15.7 billion this year, according to Angola's 2010 budget.

Both countries are also looking to bolster business ties.

Norwegian oil and gas group Statoil currently pumps around 200,000 barrels of oil per day from Angola's deepwater offshore wells. It has stakes in several fields offshore Angola and co-operates with Angola's state-owned oil firm Sonangol.

Sonangol acts as both a player and a regulator of Angola's booming oil sector, and also invests some of Angola's oil money abroad by buying stakes in listed companies in Portugal, the African nation's former colonial power.

Billions in oil revenues and Chinese loans have helped rebuild infrastructure devastated by a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002. But the spending has done little to improve life for ordinary people, two-thirds of whom live on $2 a day or less, according to the World Bank.

In its 2009 index, global corruption watchdog Transparency International ranked Angola among the 18 most graft-ridden countries, placed in Africa below Zimbabwe and Democratic Republic of Congo.