Delivering turnkey instrumentation solutions in Angola

October 23, 2025

Claudio Marques, CEO of FAST, talks to The Energy Year about the company’s partnership with Endress+Hauser in Angola, how its value proposition has evolved and how its work has been evolving in Angola’s oil and gas sector. FAST provides a comprehensive range of instrumentation services, including engineering, commissioning and training.

What does FAST’s partnership with Endress+Hauser allow you to deliver to clients in Angola?
Endress+Hauser is a major global brand. Angola doesn’t manufacture industrial equipment, so companies import complete machinery from Germany, China, France, Korea and so on. Our instrumentation is integrated into many of those machines. For instance, the skids used for filling fuel trucks always include, at least our flow fiscal metering devices.
What sets us apart is that we don’t just sell the equipment, we also provide commissioning, configuration and long-term support. Many sellers disappear after the sale, but we are here. We refuse to sell a device we know won’t work properly, even if a client insists.
For new projects, we do not sell without including commissioning, that’s our policy, otherwise, even the best equipment may not function correctly, if it was not well commissioned. We help the client choose the right device and ensure it is configured for their real needs. That long-term mindset is part of our brand identity.
Clients see us as a partner, not just a supplier. That’s the key. Today’s clients, especially the large industrial players, want long-term partners who deliver value, not just someone chasing a sale. They tell us, “We feel we can trust you,” and that trust is our foundation. We want to be known as a company that delivers reliability and expertise.

How has FAST’s value proposition evolved?
Covid opened up new opportunities because local companies couldn’t rely on outside technicians’ support anymore. They needed local services, and we were here, with trained local staff and the right conditions. Today, we have around 100 employees, with only two Portuguese, the rest are Angolan, which shows our commitment with our land.
Our service department grew significantly during that time, because we had the advantage of having our Angolan technicians in Angola, when others couldn’t fly in, showing to clients that we were a trustworthy and capable local partner, not just a vendor.

You mentioned your involvement in the oil and gas sector began more recently. How has that evolved?
We began focusing more deeply on oil and gas about three years ago. We started doing the registration of the ANPG [National Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency], AECIPA and MIRIMPET [Ministry of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas]. We are not a manpower contractor, we represent an OEM. We manufacture and sell equipment, so we work indirectly with operators.
Take TotalEnergies, for instance, they hire us to do commissioning, but we don’t hold long-term manpower contracts, we sell by project, by mission. With clients such as Sonangol, our value is in providing certified solutions, for example, on projects such as SKIDS for custody transfer applications (fiscal metering).
Our equipment is certified and crucial for tax calculations and accuracy in transfers (custody transfer). We sell devices and turnkey solutions. Our priority is to make sure that TotalEnergies, Sonangol, Chevron, Azule Energy, ExxonMobil, etc., use Endress+Hauser devices and solutions, if they purchase through contractor/EPC A, B or C is secondary.

So your strategy is to focus on the end user, even if you sell indirectly?
Yes, exactly. We want the final user to request our brand, even if we didn’t make the direct sale. That way, contractors come to us, we can then offer additional value, such as consultancy or project support. This approach helps us remain competitive while maintaining our relationships with integrators and EPC companies.

Do you follow a similar approach with clients in the mining sector?
In mining, such as with Catoca, we are currently developing the business, we see strong potential in mining because we have a big portfolio in that sector too. The government is pushing for more investment, and we are watching this space. Our strategy has always been to develop one industry at a time.
We started with food and beverage – clients such as Castle Group, Refriango, Nobel Group, Carrinho, etc., then we started into oil and gas. Once stability was achieved, we began to shift attention toward mining, which will be our next focus sector.

Where do you see FAST in the next five years?
My vision is clear. In five years, I want FAST to be fully independent in Angola, creating trustful partnerships to give fast and right answers to our clients. We want to have that capability here, so we don’t have to rely on Portugal or any other country. We already have our own project department to complete this transition.
This is key to improving our control, margins and reliability. If there is an issue, and it’s within our internal structure, we can fix it. If it’s outsourced, we can’t guarantee quality or timelines. We want to handle all the essential work in-house so we can provide proper guarantees to our clients.
At the same time, we have launched a calibration company called Avanti Labtec, Lda. Endress+Hauser is an OEM that builds instruments and in a short time, clients will need to verify them. Avanti, which is an Angolan certified calibration company, being registered in INIQ, can go on-site, compare readings with standard equipment and issue a compliance certificate. This applies to our own brand and even to our competitors’ brands.

So FAST is evolving from an equipment provider to a full solutions group.
That’s our next chapter, we are the exclusive Endress+Hauser representative in Angola, which is a big responsibility for us.
We want to be known, not only as an instrumentation supplier, but also for solutions, working together with our internal unit called BUS (business unit solutions).
When someone calls FAST, it is for good reasons, we are a reliable company that can offer turnkey solutions. We are known not only for our product lines, but for our ability to deliver reliable solutions, and locally executed, that’s what we are building.

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