Clinton Meets Angolans as Minister Calls $70 Oil 'Not Bad'

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Angola to expand efforts to increase transparency in reporting petroleum revenue as the country’s oil minister expressed satisfaction with the current price of about $70 a barrel.

Clinton, aiming to improve U.S. relations with Africa’s leading oil-producing nation, stayed overnight in Angola’s capital city of Luanda, becoming the first secretary of state to do so. She called on Angola’s leaders to fight corruption and hold a timely presidential election.
Angola’s oil-based prosperity depends on “good governance and strong democratic institutions,” Clinton said yesterday in a garden of the pink presidential palace, once pock-marked with bullet holes from 27 years of civil war that ended in 2002. She said the country’s moves to publish oil ministry revenue online and work with the U.S. Treasury Department on ways to “increase transparency” will build confidence in the government.

Later in the day, Clinton met with Angolan Oil Minister Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos, who called oil at $70 a barrel “not bad,” when asked if the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would agree to adjust production levels at their next meeting. The minister, who currently holds OPEC’s rotating presidency, said the cartel would wait until its Sept. 9 meeting in Vienna before deciding what to do.

Bloomberg