The blocks being offered are KON 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 17 in the onshore Kwanza Basin, and CON 1, 5 and 6 in the onshore Baixo Congo Basin. In 2014, Sonangol announced that the blocks hold, on average, 700,000 barrels of oil each. Angola’s total reserves are estimated at 13 billion barrels of oil.
Companies pre-qualified to be operators include Chevron, Austria’s OMV, Italy’s Eni, Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol, Galp Energy of Portugal, Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Petroleum, Anglo-Irish independent Tullow Oil, London-based Dragon Oil, UK player Sterling Energy and mining major Glencore. Among the companies pre-qualified to be non-operators are Brazil’s state-owned Petrobas, Danish upstream firm Maersk Oil and Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi.
The move by Sonangol to expand Angola’s onshore exploration potential comes as low oil prices threaten the viability of the offshore sector. Offshore currently accounts for all of the country’s crude output of 1.7 million barrels per day.
For more news and features on Angola, click here.
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