Petroleum Africa
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Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Angola’s recently elected president, João GonçalvesLourenço, held his first meeting with the CEO of Italian oil and gas producer ENI, Claudio Descalzi. The country’s newly appointed Minister for Mineral Resources and Oil, Diamantino Azevedo, was also present at the meeting.
The petroleum sector is a key business for Angola and provides a good portion of the government’s budget. Shortly after being elected Lourenco dived right into the country’s oil business, ordering a 30-day review of the sector to address the challenges it faces. The move, announced in a decree, came as Lourenco appointed Carlos Saturnino, a former head of Sonangol P&P, as secretary of state for oil. The president merged the ministries for oil and mining into one group, led by Diamantino Azevedo.
During the meeting in Luanda the three discussed ENI’s operational activities and initiatives in Angola to enhance access to energy and socio-economic development. The company has a long and successful history in Angola, participating in and/or operator of a number ofproducing fields.
In February 2017, ENI commenced production five months ahead of schedule from the East Hub Development Project in Block 15/06, in Angola’s deep offshore. The accelerated ramp-up, the reliability of the new East Hub facility and the excellent performance of the West Hub fields which already were in production, all contributed to achieving the plateau of 150,000 bpd in a very short period of time.
ENI has two other projects, the Ochigufu and the Vandumbu, which are in the execution phase and will be launched in H1 2018 andH2 2019 respectively. These projects, together with a new submarine pumping system that will be launched in H2 2018, will add 54,000 bpd to current production levels.
ENI also saw its exploration rights on Block 15/06 extended until 2020, thereby permitting the Italian firm to exploit the full near-field exploration potential in an extremely prolific basin. In the event of success, this strategy will enable a fast-track development of the reserves, leveraging on synergies with existing infrastructure and significantly reducing the time-to-market.
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