Africa-Press – Angola. The volume and reserves of declared Angolan marginal fields are estimated at four billion barrels of oil, according to the chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Agency for Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG), Paulino Jerónimo.
That amount means that there is a lot to be developed, which allows the stabilization of oil production in Angola, commented Paulino Jerónimo, without, however, advancing goals and deadlines.
Speaking at the high-level panel of the eighth African Petroleum Congress and Exhibition (CAPE VIII), which opened on Monday, the ANPG’s PCA said that the challenge for this legislature is to boost and intensify the replacement of reserves, with a view to mitigating the sharp production decline. “That’s what we’re actually doing,” said Paulino Jerónimo.
Angola has around 820,000 square kilometers of sedimentary basin, which lacks an exploration strategy, in order to assess its full extent. Based on this, a strategy for granting concessions was approved, which envisages the delivery of almost 50 fields between 2019 and 2025.
To date, around 25 concessions have been awarded in just three years, since the creation of the National Agency for Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels, which is already operating in the third bid. In 2023, the ANPG assures entering the fourth bid, an aspect that has not happened for a long time, according to Paulino Jerónimo.
“The bidding strategy, in addition to looking at the offshore, in deep and shallow waters, and the onshore is also looking at the inland basins, with about 520 square kilometers of sedimentary basins, in which we already recognize the existence of asphalt on the surface,” he confirmed.
Bet On Gas
Another opposite of Angola is directed to gas, which until recently belonged to the State and did not give up exploration rights. Today, the State decided to give the right to investors, which allowed the constitution of two large projects and the creation of nine gas consortia. The constitution of consortia was possible with the transfer of rights by the State.
According to Paulino Jerónimo, there is a project for the construction of a platform in Block 0 (zero), in order to transport the gas to Angola LNG – the anchor project.
Reversal Of Decline
The chairman of the ANPG Board of Directors considered the decline in production to be worrying, which will be reversed with the strategies in progress. The peak of Angola’s oil production was reached in 2008, with 1.903 million barrels per day.
Since that date, oil production has been in mild decline, resulting from 2009 to 2015 at 1.6 million barrels of crude oil per day. There is currently another decline, more settled than expected, fixed at 1.2 million barrels of oil per day.
In the last seven years, a diagnosis was carried out to understand the main causes of the decline and, among others, the lack of exploration and the non-development of marginal fields were identified as main factors.
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