Angola announces increase in country´s oil production

Angola, Africa's second largest oil producer after Nigeria, will require foreign and government investment to discover up to 57 billion barrels of crude by 2025, according to a new energy strategy reported by state news agency ANGOP. Angola's plan provides for foreign investment of $ 679 million and investment by the Angolan state of $ 188 million, the news agency said. Angola's new oil and gas production increase strategy comes a week after the country's upstream regulator, ANPG, released its forecast for oil production from existing fields, which showed Angola's oil production, after reaching nearly 2 million bpd in 2008 Peaked, averaging 1.28 million bpd in 2020 and would steadily decline as the oil fields matured to just over 500,000 bpd by 2028 if no new discoveries were made. OPEC producer Angola has suffered a steady decline in production over the past decade, especially after the 2014 oil price crash, as older fields matured while prohibitive costs off the Angolan coast drove out upstream investments. This year, shortly after Italy's Eni commissioned the Agogo oil field just nine months after its discovery, the pandemic and the drop in oil prices postponed exploration drilling everywhere, including Angola. Apart from Eni, France's Total has also been active off the coast of Angola in recent years, planning the drilling of an ultra-deep water source off the coast of Angola, which will be the deepest in the world. The campaign, which began in January 2020, is estimated to last 240 days, said Maersk Drilling, whose drillship Maersk Voyager is set to drill the deepest well ever drilled offshore. However, the pandemic halted drilling activities for several months. Olivier Jouny, General Manager of Total Exploration & Production Angola, announced to Africa Oil & Power last week that the Maersk Voyager should start drilling again in late August. "We are now in the process of stepping up our offshore activities and will resume drilling, seismic acquisitions, and non-routine production and maintenance in both Block 17 and Block 32," said Jouny.