Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Angola, OPEC’s newest member, took over the group’s presidency yesterday as producers implement a record output cut to reverse last year’s slump in prices.

The rotating leadership of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries passed to Angola from Algeria as the 12- member group starts a 9 percent reduction in its total production target agreed in December after prices crashed $100 in five months.

Angola, a war-ravaged nation of 17 million that ranks among the world’s 22 most corrupt countries in a Transparency International index, is vying with Nigeria to be Africa’s largest oil producer as BP Plc and Total SA and develop offshore fields. The country’s new quota is 1.517 million barrels a day, 19 percent below its November production, forcing it to make the largest proportional cut among OPEC’s members.

“Angola in the long run might not be a hawk among OPEC members, but in order to show their commitment in the beginning, they will cut production,” said Ehsan Ul-Haq, head of research at Vienna-based JBC Energy GmbH. “These are difficult days for everyone, including Angola.”

Oil prices fell 54 percent to $44.60 a barrel in New York last year, the first annual decline since 2001 and the biggest drop since trading began in 1983. OPEC trimmed production three times as crude crashed from a record $147.27 in July in the wake of the global economic crisis that cut world energy consumption.

Angola’s priority as the head of OPEC will be to stabilize oil prices at a level which satisfies both consumers and producers, oil minister and OPEC’s new president, Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconselos, said last month. The ideal price for OPEC is around $70 to $75 a barrel, he said. The country joined the group at the start of 2007.

Exports Cut

The oil exporter cut scheduled shipments of crude in February by about 13 percent from original plans, according to loading schedule obtained by Bloomberg. Forty-seven shipments, averaging 1.61 million barrels a day, are now scheduled to load.

“We will be counting on the best of contributions from member countries on how to bring prices to acceptable levels,” Vasconselos told reporters prior to the group’s Dec. 17 meeting in Oran, Algeria. Angola will take “moderate” decisions as the president of the group, he said.

Angola cut output by 244,000 barrels a day yesterday to comply with quotas, Jornal de Angola reported today, citing Vasconselos. While Vasconcelos said it wouldn’t be possible to fully implement the production cut, “it would be good” if the country reached 80 percent compliance, the newspaper said.

Vasconselos, 58, was appointed Angola’s oil minister for a second time in October 2008 after about seven years as the head of the energy and water resources ministry. He previously held the post between 1999 and 2002. An engineer by training, he worked in Belgium in the 1970s before taking a post at Royal Dutch Shell Plc in France in 1981, according to OPEC’s Web site.

Civil War

Angola, a former Portuguese colony, is recovering from a 27-year civil war which ended in 2002. As many as 1.5 million people may have died in the conflict between the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

The country is led by President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, leader of the MPLA, who held on to power after the death of Unita’s Jonas Savimbi in 2002.

Crude production and the oil industry contributed about 85 percent of Angola’s GDP in 2007, according to the CIA.

Oil export income has helped increase Angola’s gross national income per capita to $2,560, almost triple the average for Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Bank. Still, the country ranks 157 out of 179 in the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Index, which includes the population’s quality of life, life expectancy and knowledge.

Exxon’s Mondo

Angola’s oil output rose above Nigeria’s for the first time last year as new projects including Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Mondo field boosted production. Output reached as high as 1.9 million barrels a day in March, according to Bloomberg estimates, while Nigeria’s fell to 1.8 million barrels a day because of pipeline disruptions and rebel attacks.

New fields coming on stream this year will increase the amount of production capacity the country has to idle to comply with its OPEC target. The U.S Department of Energy estimates that at least 205,000 barrels a day of new output is scheduled to start in 2009, taking capacity above 2 million barrels a day.

Oil from Angola accounted for about 5 percent of total U.S. crude imports in 2007, or 496,000 barrels a day, according to the Energy Information Administration. China imports 500,000 barrels of day of oil from Angola, according to Glencore International AG, the world’s largest commodity-trading company.

OPEC agreed at its Dec. 17 meeting in Oran to reduce its total production targets for its 11 members with quotas, excluding Iraq, by 9 percent to 24.845 million barrels a day. Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter, had its target cut 5.1 percent to 8.051 million barrels a day.

Indonesia has left OPEC, suspending its membership after declining crude production made it a net oil importer. Ecuador resumed full participation in the group in December 2007 after suspending its membership in 1992.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski in London at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.netCandido Mendes in Luanda via the Johannesburg bureau at abolleurs@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 2, 2009 04:11 EST