(Adds more comments from opposition leader, analyst para 13-15)

By Zoe Eisentein

LUANDA, March 8 (Reuters) - Angola is expected to see $50 billion in investments in its oil industry in the next six years, the head of state oil company Sonangol was quoted on Thursday as saying.

Sonangol Chairman Manuel Vicente made the prediction despite the collapse of two major energy deals and the possibility of renewed political tension after the main opposition leader said policemen may have tried to assassinate him.

Sonangol has ended talks on Chinese company Sinopec's <0386.HK> plans to invest in a $3 billion oil refinery, industry and banking sources said on Wednesday.

Chinese companies have played a major role in the oil-driven reconstruction boom Angola has enjoyed since it emerged from a ruinous 27-year civil war. It has become China's biggest supplier of crude.

In another blow to investment, U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil Corp. <XOM.N> has transferred its minority stake in a planned multibillion dollar liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant to Sonangol, a company spokesman said on Wednesday.

State news agency Angop quoted Vicente as saying that Angola expected oil investment in areas including infrastructure construction and maintenance services.

He stressed that Angolan companies would be encouraged to take advantage of growth in the industry, which is fuelling an economic boom in sub-Saharan Africa's second largest oil producer after Nigeria.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR LOCAL SUPPLIERS

"Opportunities for national suppliers and providers of services exist and the concessionary (Sonangol) will continue promoting the integration of these initiatives in the oil industry," Vicente was quoted as saying.

Angola, which has joined the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, is pumping more than one million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and production is projected to reach at least two million bpd by 2008 as new fields come onstream.

Companies may take a closer look at Angola's politics to gauge overall stability ahead of the first legislative elections in more than a decade in 2008, and a presidential poll a year later.

Isaias Samavuka, head of Angola's largest opposition party UNITA, said on Wednesday that police may have tried to assassinate him and warned that government actions could reopen hostilities with his former rebel movement.

Police officials acknowledged that a shooting took place on March 2 and said they were investigating the incident.

Samavuka did not predict all-out conflict but said government pressure on UNITA could undermine chances of holding fair elections.

"The political climate is rather closed right now. Angola is certainly not in danger of returning to war, but this climate is not what one might expect five years after the end of the war," said Nicholas Shaxson, an Africa expert at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.

"The MPLA is showing controlling tendencies...There is quite a deep reluctance to tolerate alternative opinions about how Angola should be ruled."

AlertNet news is provided by