BP Amoco is to publish a range of information about its oil operations in war-torn Angola in a step a human rights group said was a good example for other energy giants in their dealings with the African country.

The Global Witness group said it had been informed by BP that it would publish total net production by block, aggregate payments to state oil firm Sonangol related to production sharing and total taxes and levies paid to the government as a result of operations.

The group said it had received a letter dated February 6 from BP Group Managing Director Richard Olver outlining the company's intentions about information on operations in Angola, where BP hopes to start production later this year.

"BP have become the first oil company to make a decisive and welcome gesture for transparency in the war-torn country," Simon Taylor of Global Witness said in a statement.

"It follows that there is now no excuse for the other companies in Angola not to do the same. So to that end, we are challenging the leadership of other responsible oil companies to publish this data."

Locked into a 25-year civil war, Angola's formerly Marxist government has been criticised for secrecy and a web of intricate finances linking the government, the central bank, the state oil company Sonangol and foreign arms dealers.

Human rights activists have long urged foreign companies operating in Angola to provide data about payments to the government, which is fighting a civil war against National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) guerrillas.

Activists say oil firms operating in war-ravaged African countries like Angola inadvertently enrich undemocratic and corrupt governments, fuel civil wars, pollute the environment and end up doing more harm than good - charges the oil giants deny.

Taylor added: "We believe that President Bush, as an oil man himself, has a particular responsibility to ensure that oil giants Chevron and Exxon are as transparent about their payments in Angola, as they are obliged to be in the United States."

Citing a related example of BP's openness, Global Witness pointed out that the British-based company had disclosed in a regulatory filing that it had paid $111,689,000 to the Angolan government as its share of an operating signature bonus.

The bonus was for the right to operate the country's highly prospective ultra deepwater offshore block 31. That figure was disclosed in a publicly available annual report dated December 31, 1999 and filed with Britain's Companies House last year by BP Exploration (Angola) Ltd, the company's arm in the southwest African country.

The total signature bonus, a non-recoverable payment to the Angolan authorities, totalled $300 million for block 31 including payments by BP's partners. The block is one of four Angolan offshore oil exploration blocks regarded as the most highly sought after in global ultradeep opportunities.

Global Witness reported Olver as saying the company would maintain a regular dialogue with both the World Bank and International Monetary Fund about Angola.

Independent accountancy firm KPMG is studying Angola's multi-billion dollar oil books as part of an IMF-backed programme to repair the war-shattered country's economy and improve accountability.

Angola has known little but civil war since winning independence from Portugal in 1975. The United Nations brokered a ceasefire between the government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and Jonas Savimbi's UNITA in 1994. But a truce finally collapsed in late 1998.