In a major boost for its climate-aligned energy strategy, Angola has renewed a partnership between Chevron and INGA to advance low-carbon initiatives across the country's energy sector. The renewed memorandum focuses on collaboration in green hydrogen, biofuels, sustainable aviation fuel, carbon capture, and carbon market mechanisms, while also promoting public-private partnerships to accelerate decarbonization. This agreement highlights Angola's commitment to integrating low-carbon solutions alongside traditional oil and gas operations, supporting both environmental goals and the long-term competitiveness of the national energy sector.
The renewed Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 5 February 2026 in Luanda by three of Angola's most important energy and environmental institutions the National Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANPG), the National Institute of Environmental Management (INGA), and Chevron, through its New Energies division and its long-established Cabinda Gulf Oil Company (CABGOC). The addendum extends by two years a cooperation framework originally established on 30 October 2023, and its renewal at this senior institutional level confirms that what began as a forward-looking commitment has since been tested, validated, and is now ready to move into a more ambitious and impactful phase.
Building on Two Years of Real Progress
The decision to renew and extend the MOU was not made in a vacuum. The first phase of cooperation between ANPG, INGA, and Chevron delivered concrete and foundational results that now underpin the next stage of the partnership's ambitions. Chevron Angola Director-General Frank Cassulo pointed specifically to the joint work that enabled Chevron to support the Angolan government in developing comprehensive low-carbon legislation with particular focus on carbon offset regulations and the architecture of a voluntary carbon market. These are not peripheral achievements. They are the regulatory and commercial foundations without which biofuel projects cannot be financed, carbon credits cannot be issued or traded, and international clean energy investment cannot flow into Angola at meaningful scale.
ANPG Chairman Paulino Jerónimo reflected on the original purpose that drove the partnership into being: "Since the beginning, this partnership was conceived to reconcile hydrocarbon production with the energy transition and with investment in a low-carbon economy." That vision of an Angola that does not have to choose between its oil and gas heritage and its clean energy future is precisely what the renewed MOU is designed to operationalize in practical, investable terms.
A Broad and Ambitious Agenda
The scope of the renewed partnership is deliberately wide, reflecting an understanding that Angola's low-carbon transition cannot be confined to a single technology or sector. The MOU covers collaboration across biofuels, sustainable aviation fuel, carbon capture, nature-based carbon offsets, and technology-based carbon compensation mechanisms, a portfolio of solutions that collectively addresses emissions across multiple parts of Angola's economy, from upstream oil operations to aviation, transport, and industry.
The inclusion of sustainable aviation fuel is particularly noteworthy. As global aviation faces increasing pressure to decarbonise and as African aviation connectivity continues to grow, Angola's potential to become a regional producer and supplier of sustainable aviation fuel represents both an environmental contribution and a significant commercial opportunity. Similarly, the focus on carbon market mechanisms both voluntary and regulatory positions Angola to participate in the rapidly expanding global market for verified carbon credits, an area where African countries with substantial natural forest and ocean assets hold genuine competitive advantages.
The Regional Centre of Excellence: Angola as a Continental Hub
Among the most strategically significant commitments within the renewed MOU is the planned establishment of a Regional Centre of Excellence focused on attracting low-carbon investment into strategic sectors including transport, petrochemicals, agriculture, and the ocean economy. This initiative elevates the partnership's ambition beyond Angola's domestic energy sector and positions the country as a potential regional anchor for clean energy investment across a broader African footprint.
For international capital allocators, climate-focused funds, and development finance institutions seeking credible African platforms through which to deploy sustainable investment, a Regional Centre of Excellence backed by ANPG, INGA, and Chevron would represent exactly the kind of structured, well-governed vehicle capable of aggregating expertise, facilitating deals, and creating the conditions for transformative investment at scale. It is an institution-building initiative that could, over time, prove to be among the most consequential outputs of the entire partnership.
Environmental Governance at the Heart of the Agenda
The active involvement of INGA, Angola's national environmental management authority gives this partnership a dimension of environmental credibility and regulatory oversight that purely commercial agreements often lack. INGA Director-General Simone da Silva was clear about the institution's commitment: "INGA will continue to ensure that low-carbon initiatives contribute effectively to environmental protection, economic development and the fulfilment of Angola's climate priorities." That assurance matters. It means that the low-carbon projects emerging from this partnership will be designed, monitored, and verified against Angola's own environmental standards giving them the domestic regulatory legitimacy that international investors and carbon market participants require.
Hydrocarbons and the Low-Carbon Future: A False Choice Rejected
What the ANPG-INGA-Chevron MOU renewal ultimately demonstrates is that Angola has firmly rejected the notion that hydrocarbon production and climate responsibility are incompatible goals. Angola's oil and gas revenues are the fiscal engine that funds the country's development including the very investments in clean energy, environmental protection, and social infrastructure that its climate commitments require. Managing that transition intelligently, rather than abandoning hydrocarbons prematurely, is the approach that Angola's government, its regulatory institutions, and its international partners have collectively chosen.
The renewed MOU is the clearest expression yet of that choice a structured, multi-year, multi-institution commitment to building a low-carbon economy alongside a productive and responsible hydrocarbon sector. With Angola's voluntary carbon market framework taking shape, biofuel and sustainable aviation fuel programmes advancing, a Regional Centre of Excellence in development, and Chevron committed as a partner for the years ahead, Angola is not merely talking about its low-carbon future. It is actively and systematically building it and the foundation being laid today will define the competitiveness, resilience, and sustainability of Angola's energy economy for decades to come.
Connect With Us