Page 6 - DMEA Week 31 2022

DMEA COMPANIES DMEA

BP, Eni complete formation

of Azule Energy JV in Angola

AFRICA BP (UK) and Eni (Italy) confirmed on August 2 This included securing the relevant regulatory
that they had completed the process of establish- approvals and $2.5bn in third-party pre-export
ing Azule Energy, a new joint venture that will financing, it explained.
combine both companies’ upstream, LNG and BP and Eni said they were confident that
solar energy assets in Angola. Azule Energy would see production rise over
In a joint statement, BP and Eni noted that the next five years thanks to “a strong pipeline
Azule Energy’s portfolio would include equity of new projects that are scheduled to come on
stakes in 16 Angolan oil and gas blocks, includ- stream over the next few years, growing organ-
ing six exploration blocks, that are believed to ically from exploration discoveries.” The joint
contain around 2bn barrels of oil equivalent venture’s exploration blocks cover a combined
(boe) in net resources. area of 30,000 square km in sections of Angola’s
The joint venture’s share of production from offshore zone that are known to be rich in hydro-
these sites is on track to rise to about 250,000 bar- carbons, and they are close enough to existing
rels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) within the infrastructure facilities that opportunities for
next five years, they said. This will make it the synergy are sure to arise, they said.
country’s largest independent equity producer of In the meantime, they added, Azule Energy
oil and gas, they added. will also be involved in bringing new assets such
The partners went on to say that Azule Energy as the Agogo Full Field project at Block 15/06
would assume BP and Eni’s shares in Angola and the Palas-Astrea-Juno (PAJ) project at Block
LNG, the operator of an onshore gas liquefaction 31 on stream. Additionally, it will be a share-
plant with a production capacity of 5.2mn tonnes holder in New Gas Consortium (NGC), a group
per year (tpy). The joint venture will also take formed to develop the country’s non-associated
control of Eni’s stake in Solenova, a solar energy gas resources in order to increase the volume of
concern established with Angola’s national oil feedstock delivered to Angola LNG.
company (NOC) Sonangol, as well as the Italian BP and Eni struck a deal on combining their
company’s investments in the Luanda oil refin- Angolan assets in May 2021. The two companies
ery, they reported. are also mulling the possibility of making simi-
The incorporation of the joint venture was lar arrangements in Algeria, and in March of this
completed after the two majors met all condi- year, they were reported to be close to reaching
tions for the transaction, the statement noted. an agreement.™

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