Italian ENI finds oil well with potential of up to 200 million barrels in Angola

Italian oil company Eni has announced a new oil discovery at the Afoxé field in Block 15/06, off the coast of Angola, which could lead to total production of between 170 million and 200 million barrels of crude oil.

“In Afoxé-1 NFW, Eni made a new oil discovery, located southeast of the Block 15/06 area, approximately 120 kilometres from the coast, 50 kilometres southwest of the Olombendo FPSO and 20 kilometres west of the site where the latest Kalimba-1 discovery was confirmed,” the oil company said in a statement.

Tests on the discovery are not complete but the intensive surveys already carried out point to a production capacity of 5,000 barrels of oil per day.

The new discoveries of Kalimba and Afoxé together represent a potential of 400-500 million barrels of high quality crude oil, which is a new oil cluster that can be explored together with a new concept of development.

This discovery in Afoxé was the last confirmation of the potential for oil exploration on the southern side of Block 15/06, which is also predicted to have potential for natural gas exploration.

The Italian oil company added that it is planning to move forward with four new explorations, step by step, in Block 15/06 throughout 2019.

“Eni is committed to developing this breakthrough, which puts the company in the best position in the market, and at the same time will move to new exploration fields with the aim of increasing average production growth in that country,” said the chief executive of Eni, Claudio Descalzi, quoted in the statement.

Eni has been in Angola since 1980, where it already produces the equivalent of 150,000 barrels of oil per day.

Block 15/06 is being developed in a joint venture between Eni (with 36.84%, and operator of this block), Sonangol P&P (36.84%) and SSI Fifteen Limited (with 26.32%).

LUSA