Angola has proven oil reserves of 11.4 bn barrels
Angola has proven oil reserves of 11.4 bn barrels, the same as Brazil and Algeria, consultancy Wood Mackenzie
reported.
With headquarters in Edinburgh, the company projects that Angola will produce 1.6 mm barrels of oil per day by 2011,
a level of production equivalent to that of Kuwait. The oil discoveries made over the last 30 years along the Angolan
coast have increased production ten-fold from the 150,000 bpd in 1975 to a current level of some 1.5 mm bpd.
Angola, which recently became a member of the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC), is vied for by the two
largest buyers in the world, the United States and China, and recently became the biggest supplier of oil to the
Chinese market, overtaking Saudi Arabia. Analysts now expect Angola to take advantage of falls in production in
Nigeria due to the instability the country is going through, where constant sabotage is leading to losses of around
600,000 bpd, or a third of total production.
Between 1995 and 2005, the Gulf of Guinea Region represented 5 % of all oil wells drilled in the world and 21 % of
oil strikes, half of which were located in Angola.
