By Matthew Smith - Jan 19, 2021, 3:00 PM CST
The sub-Saharan country of Angola is not one which readily springs to mind when thinking about oil producing nations. The deeply impoverished former Portuguese colony, which is an OPEC member joining the cartel in 2007, is the second largest oil producer behind Nigeria and ahead of Algeria, also both cartel members. The sub-Saharan country experienced a massive oil boom from 2002 into 2008 after the discovery of considerable offshore pre-salt oil reserves. The West African and South American margin basins were found to share many characteristics, including the pre-salt tectono-sedimentary sequences along with reservoir qualities and crude oil grades. Those are the primary geological formations which hold the smaller oil basins which underpin Angola and Brazil’s flourishing oil booms. The primary oil basins in Angola are the offshore Lower Congo, Kwanza, Benguela and Namibe basins.