H.E. Diamantino Pedro Azevedo is Angola’s Minister of Mineral Resources, Petroleum and Gas, responsible for the country’s oil, gas and mining sectors. First appointed to government in 2017, he was reappointed by President João Lourenço on 16 September 2022. Angola is one of Africa’s largest oil producers, and in 2021 Azevedo served as President of the OPEC Conference.

A mining engineer by training, Azevedo completed his undergraduate degree (1986–1990) and a master’s degree (1990–1991) in mining engineering at the Freiberg Mining Academy in Germany, followed by a PhD in mining engineering at the Technical University of Berlin (1992–1997). He later completed the Advanced Management Program with Kellogg at the Catholic University of Lisbon (2011). He has lectured at Agostinho Neto University and served as an adviser in the office of the Minister of Geology and Mines.

From 2006 to 2017 he chaired the board of directors of Ferrangol, the state iron ore company, and from 2006 to 2012 he was Director-General of a regional mineral resources centre for Southern and Eastern Africa based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. During his time as minister, Angola reorganised its petroleum sector, creating the National Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANPG) in 2019 as national concessionaire, and in September 2025 inaugurated the Cabinda refinery, the first refinery built from scratch in the country since independence.

Azevedo’s current priorities include stabilising and then increasing oil production, maximising the value Angola derives from each barrel, advancing local content in the petroleum sector, completing new refining capacity, and attracting long-term partners to develop minerals such as copper, gold, iron ore, lithium, manganese, niobium, phosphates and rare earth elements, which he describes as essential to Africa’s industrialisation and the global energy transition.