World Energy Crunch Puts Broke Angola Back in Black : Oil: With 90% of its export earnings dependent on petroleum production, Gulf crisis proves a boon after 15-year civil war.

After 15 years of an economically devastating civil war, oil-rich Angola may find itself on the winning end of the conflict in the Persian Gulf.

The southwestern African nation derives 90% of its export earnings from oil production, and experts say the recent run-up in crude prices on worldwide markets could bring a windfall in profits.

The light crude from Angola’s oil-producing center in Cabinda province already has risen to as much as $32 a 42-gallon barrel since the Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait by neighboring Iraq. That was $17 higher than the April average.

It’s a welcome relief for Angola, which, like other oil-producing nations, had to weather a soft oil market in the mid-1980s, when crude prices neared the $10-a-barrel level.

“The government needs oil revenues desperately,” said Robert Connon, general manager of Cabinda Gulf Oil Co., a unit of Chevron Corp., which operates rigs off the Cabinda coast near Zaire.

Oil is what has kept the country going during the civil war between the Marxist government and U.S.-backed UNITA rebels, who have been fighting for power since Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975.

Although much of Angola’s land is fertile, little has been under cultivation since the war. And exports of the country’s large mineral deposits, including diamonds and iron ore, have been virtually halted.

Angola currently pumps about 550,000 barrels of crude a day, up from a daily output of 130,000 barrels in 1982, according to government figures. That’s only about one-tenth the oil of Saudi Arabia, but with crude reserves at 2.1 billion barrels, Angola follows Nigeria as sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest oil producer.

Oil industry experts estimate that Angola’s crude oil exports earned $2.5 billion last year, up from an estimated $1.9 billion in 1985.

The United States is the largest buyer of Angolan oil even though it spends more than $50 million a year in arming UNITA, which stands for the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola. U.S. imports of Angolan oil totaled 42.7 million barrels from January through May, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Angola is not a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, but it often follows moves by the cartel to cut or raise production. It’s unlikely, though, that Angola will boost production any time soon to make up for a shortage of supplies stemming from the Iraqi invasion and subsequent U.S. troop buildup in the region, representatives of the big foreign oil companies said. They said Angola oil production already is operating near capacity.

“Our fields in Angola, and from what we understand, the other fields as well are producing pretty much flat out,” said Bill Rapp, Texaco Inc.’s West African and Latin American area coordinator.

But Cabinda Gulf’s Connon said that in the next three years his company expects to increase its pumping capacity by 50,000 barrels a day.

“There have been some exploration successes recently, and I see a fair amount of interest from companies not operating here yet,” he said.

State-owned Sonangol is the sole concessionaire for oil exploration and production rights in Angola. But foreign firms, including Texaco and Chevron of the United States, Frances’s Elf Aquitaine and Belgium’s Petrofina, have opened production-sharing agreements or joint ventures with the state company.