Angola’s oil industry is highly commended in Nigeria

The level of development of Angola’s petroleum industry was highly commended at the First Regional Conference on Sub-Saharan deep waters oil activity held from 14-18 November in Abuja, Nigeria.
Comparing data available, participants realised that although Nigeria started deep waters exploration earlier, Angola has currently by far surpassed the former in terms of development. Asked to comment on this progress, the director for concessions of the Angolan Oil Firm (Sonangol), Henrique Lago de Carvalho, who attended the meeting, said this comes as a result of "good" articulation between Angolan Government representative (oil firm) and the various operators.

To him, the kind of production contracts in Angola, which he considers as the most perfect, have also contributed for the country to make great strides towards developing its deep waters reserves.
"It was with pleasure that we have noticed that despite having started deep waters exploration after Nigeria, Angola at the moment has surpassed that country by far. It is with pride that we can say that we are far ahead of them in this aspect," Henrique Carvalho stressed.

According to him, Nigeria has at the moment three great projects that have been awaiting four years for approval, whereas in Angola all discoveries identified, as well as the development projects proposed, have been more or less rapidly approved.
He mentioned the case of Kuito field (with a daily production of more than 60.000 barrels) that "was among the fastest and that has taken two years and a half, from its discovery, through its commercial declaration until start of production.

In his turn, Nelson Pacavira, one of ChevronTexaco directors, who also attended the conference, stated that generally, from discovery to production it takes ten years, but in the case of Angola, after the Kuito experience, the other projects tend to reduce the 30 months term. Commenting on the meeting, he said that Angolan delegation took the experience from Block 14 -- situated in deep waters and that possesses certain activity and tradition.
"We have already participated in several conferences, in special that of the American Association of Petroleum and Geologists. We have come to convey our knowledge to other companies because science, in principle, should not be held in secrecy, it should always be shared, as at these forums we also learn to improve our activity, since technology is always in progress," he added.

He also noted that the delegation of Angola "has made the difference", adding that currently, in terms of deep waters "our presence has been notorious and once again, here, where we have received too positive reactions from all participants, some of them from America."
In his turn, in speaking of Angola’s participation at the conference, the head of delegation and Sonangol’s Concessions administrator, Antonio Pegado, considered it as positive, as the Angolan technicians presented 11 to 12 scientific topics of excellent quality. The Angolan delegation is considering to submit to the Government, through Sonangol, a proposal to host the second Conference, that might take place in two years time.

Currently, Angola produces more than 1 mm bpd, with the start of production in the fields Chicomba/Kizomba, Block 15, and Girassol (17), both deep water ones. Kuito is the first deep waters field that started production in 2000 and is located on Block 14, that has six years of existence.
Kuito was followed by the second huge discovery -- Benguela/Belize field -- with a 250.000 barrels reserve and whose project of development currently underway, has global cost of $ 1.2 bn. It is expected to state operation in 2006.

Following came Lobito/Tomboco. It is estimated to start producing in 2007 and, with the Block 14 starting to have an output of 250 bpd.
Later on, the Tombwa/Landana field, on the same block, will start. It is situated in Cabinda's territorial waters, west of Block Zero. In Africa south of Sahara, Angola and Nigeria are the only deep waters oil producing countries.