A US small business will utilise political risk insurance and financing from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Opic) to develop a pump and motor repair operation in Angola that will help the country’s oil industry end reliance on time-consuming overseas repairs and equipment replacement.

S&N International, LLC, of Houston will receive US$750,000 in Opic insurance and US$495,000 in Opic financing for the establishment of a pump and motor repair, testing, sales, and distribution business S&N Pump Africa Lda to be operated from a warehouse facility in Cabassango, in Angola’s Cabinda province.

The project will service the drilling, production and engineering market segments of the offshore oil industry. Because there are no local pump repair facilities in the region, S&N Pump Africa will provide immediate local maintenance and repair of pumping equipment, helping to end the costly practice of replacing old equipment with new equipment from overseas or within stocked inventory.

S&N Pump Africa intends to expand into the fresh and sewage water supply industry as infrastructure is developed within Angola and the region.

“This project is beneficial on several fronts: it will generate local employment and facilitate the transfer to Angola of technology essential to the development of its infrastructure an important step for a nation which has suffered from a long civil war,” says Opic chairman Peter Watson. “It also enables a US small business to expand its operations in a region, Sub-Saharan Africa, which is an Opic priority and holds much promise for US investors.”