Chevron in Angola Flap : State Dept. Claims Gulf Oil Unit Aids Marxist Nation

Chevron on Wednesday rejected increasingly pointed suggestions by the Reagan Administration that the company suspend its Gulf Oil unit’s operations in Angola.

Chevron’s response came as State Department officials implied for the second day in a row that U.S. firms doing business in Angola are aiding that African nation’s Marxist government in its war against insurgents. Chevron, with $600 million in Angolan assets, is that nation’s largest foreign investor.

“Much of the hard currency earned by the Angolan government with the help of these firms goes toward imports of military equipment and payments for the Cuban troops” stationed there, State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb said. “This supports war rather than the search for peace.”

But Chevron spokesman Stephen North said that “our withdrawal wouldn’t reduce (the Angolan government’s) revenue flow by one penny.” Foreign oil companies, he added, “would quickly step into our shoes.”

Export-Import Bank Loans

North also pointed to ambiguities in the State Department’s statement to justify Chevron’s continued operations in Angola. The U.S. government’s statement said that Angola’s long-term economic interests lie with the West, adding that “we see a key role for U.S. business as the Angolan problem is resolved.”

The Chevron spokesman also noted that the U.S. Export-Import Bank has continued to advance funds to Chevron and other companies operating in Angola under terms of a 1984 package of $96 million in loans and loan guarantees.

Wednesday’s developments came as a group of 29 conservative organizations in Washington stepped up their publicity campaign to force Chevron to withdraw from Angola.

The campaign, spearheaded by Conservative Caucus leader Howard Phillips, coincides with this week’s visit to Washington by Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi. Savimbi met Wednesday with Secretary of State George P. Shultz to request American arms and is expected to be welcomed at the White House on Thursday by President Reagan.

Activists began spreading leaflets at Gulf gas stations around Washington on Wednesday. Literature for the “Gulf Out of Angola Project” included a mock “wanted” poster picturing Chevron Chairman George M. Keller. The activists said they plan to expand the leafletting to 20 states eventually.

“WANTED for supplying $2 billion-plus of aid and comfort annually to America’s Soviet enemy in Cuban-occupied Angola,” the poster reads. “If you see this man, ask him why he is subsidizing the Kremlin’s African military buildup.”

Chevron said it actually paid the Angolan government $580 million in taxes and royalties last year. And Keller, through a spokesman, declined comment. “We’re not going to stoop to their level,” Chevron spokesman G. Michael Marcy said.

A Chevron statement called the conservative groups’ effort to force the company to abandon its Angolan operations, which provide about 4% of Chevron’s U.S. crude oil requirements, “an irresponsible crusade . . . based on their rather twisted and biased version of reality.”

Chevron’s involvement in Angola includes a 49% stake in the Cabinda joint venture with Sonangol, the Angolan state oil company. The concession, which covers 1.3 million acres offshore and 4,700 acres onshore, is operated by Chevron’s Gulf unit, which discovered oil there in 1966.

Chevron’s share of Cabinda’s production totaled 83,000 barrels a day last year; half is shipped to the United States, and the balance resold to other big oil companies. The company insists that it is “apolitical,” although it acknowledges warning Congress recently that “American government action, however well-intentioned,” might endanger “American lives and property.”

Savimbi’s UNITA guerrilla fighters have launched sporadic attacks on installations at Cabinda, which are partly guarded by some of the Cuban troops in Angola. About 150 Americans are employed by Chevron in Angola.

R. Con Kirkwood, the 26-year-old organizer of the Gulf Out of Angola Project, said he is unswayed by Chevron’s argument that foreign oil companies would replace Gulf were it to withdraw. “Let them have the blood on their hands,” he said.

Added another young activist, Jeffrey Pandin: “Unlike some conservatives, we’re no friends of big business.”