Baker Hughes invests in Angola’s offshore future

Angola

Valter Escorcio, Baker Hughes’ country director for Angola, talks about the role the company plays in Azule Energy’s Agogo project and the scope of its work in Cabinda for Chevron in blocks 14 and 0. Baker Hughes is an energy technology company that provides solutions for energy and industrial customers worldwide.

What role does Baker Hughes play in Azule Energy’s Agogo project?
We are supplying subsea equipment including wellheads, Christmas trees and manifolds. It is a critical part of the project. However, we are also looking to provide turbo machinery, turbines and compressors for the FPSO and to play a role in well construction, including drilling and completion works.
For the Agogo project, timing and execution are critical. We are manufacturing Christmas trees in our facilities here in Sonils, and we are moving a lot of other product lines, such as drilling, to other spaces in our base to accommodate our manufacturing work for Agogo.
We are rearranging our facilities in Sonils, which will really allow us to deliver in a better way for our clients. Subsea operations are going to be centralised here, and we will take our drilling equipment to a new, larger facility, since drilling activities are expected to grow. Our drilling unit will have a new facility in Sonils that is larger than the one we have today. We are making incremental facility investments to address the growth that is currently happening in Angola.

Tell us about the scope of the work you’re doing in Cabinda for Chevron in blocks 14 and 0.
We are currently working on the subsea part of the work in Chevron’s Block 14, and we continue to give them field support. They might install some additional wells in Block 14, and we are looking at that possibility with them. However, the really exciting part is the drilling. We started drilling operations in both blocks 14 and 0 in late 2022. As of May 2023, we had executed between 12-16 wells. We have also deployed our AccessESP intervention solution in Chevron’s Cabinda blocks.
Block 0 is probably the most exciting block in Angola. It is the oldest one in Angola. It was discovered in the 1950s, operations started in the 1960s, and it still has more to give than it has already given.
I am very excited about Cabinda and Chevron specifically, and we are looking to continue to invest. We will certainly continue investing in Cabinda for Chevron, as well as other clients. Eni is also conducting a large seismic survey onshore Cabinda right now on a brownfield.
Cabinda itself will have a new deepwater port, and that new port could also revolutionise how we do things. Currently, importing equipment to Cabinda is very complicated. Not having a port is disincentivising many things, so the port will really unlock a lot of potential.

What are the key mid- to long-term trends defining Angola’s upstream future?
What really excites me is exploration. Exploration represents the new frontier and growth mode. For a long time, there was little to no exploration in Angola. Hopefully ExxonMobil’s efforts in the Namibe Basin will open a whole new frontier. If they make discoveries – and we hope they will – it could open a new chapter for Angola’s upstream sector. The first wells are expected to be drilled in 2024.
Another important development moving the industry forward is TotalEnergies’ Cameia-Golfinho project in blocks 20/11 and 21/09. It’s an exciting development because it will create more production capacity between 2025 and 2027. I think that, until 2030, there is a very sustainable outlook for this industry. What happens from 2030 onwards will depend on ExxonMobil’s efforts in the Namibe Basin and on new onshore developments, which could also open a new avenue for increased production.

What are some of the innovations you are introducing in Angola?
In May 2023, we started with light well intervention vessels for Azule Energy. That’s a first for us in Angola. In 2023, we also re-entered the coiled tubing market in Angola. We are also entering the well intervention market with a new brand we acquired called Altus Intervention. These are three very specific lines of innovation that we are investing in and bringing to the Angolan market.
We are always diversifying our portfolio and bringing in new solutions. Coiled tubing and well interventions are essential to supporting the life of the brownfields. These solutions extend their life and support the production levels on existing fields.
We continue to do a lot of drilling and completion work with IOCs present in Angola. We also continue to supply chemicals to many other clients in Angola. Regarding rotating equipment, turbomachinery turbines and compressors, we continue to support our traditional customers with our installed base, such as TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil, Angola LNG and Sonangol. We continue to support them with maintenance in those units.
For the New Gas Consortium project, we won the turbomachinery contract. As of May 2023, we were providing turbomachinery turbines for the new platforms. When they start up, we will also support them with long-term maintenance.

How mature is Angola as a market for new digital tools and technological innovations?
Because it’s a mature basin and a lot of the infrastructure is already built, the appetite for innovation is limited. When you start new projects, such as in blocks 20/11 and 21/09, you already begin with a new mindset. When a new project is put together, you’re already thinking about the digital side and the decarbonisation projects, while with the old projects, you did not. With the old projects, these aspects need to be engineered in.
The new projects will increasingly have these innovations engineered in from the start as opposed to trying to retrofit because you really need to explain retrofitting costs. If you cannot demonstrate that a technology, idea or development can bring extra revenue, it’s difficult to convince the IOCs to invest in it. You need to really make a strong business case.
Many of the net-zero-related solutions also depend on the legislation. I think the ANPG [National Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency] is still working on many of those decarbonisation initiatives.
Digitalisation and the road to net-zero is a journey. It’s not something that happens overnight. We are talking to all our clients in Angola regarding the opportunities they may have and the support they may need from us in terms of their energy transition. They need to make the decisions regarding what they want to do to achieve their sustainability goals and advance on the road to net-zero, and we will help them with the solutions.

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