Page 10 - AfrOil Week 11 2023

AfrOil INVESTMENT AfrOil

The US major may invest $15bn by the end of “We plan to utilise our advanced technology,
the decade if it uncovers commercial oil depos- project execution capabilities and commitment
its in the Namibe basin, Jeronimo stated. “It is to safety and environmental performance to dis-
expected that production will begin by 2030, cover new commercial reserves in the Namibe
contributing to the reversal of [Angola’s] decline basin,” she added, according to Bloomberg.
in production, the replacement of reserves
and the creation of new jobs in the region,” he Cameia-Golfinho FID
commented. Geronimo and Bond were speaking shortly
Equity in the projects will be split 60% to before reports emerged that another Western
ExxonMobil and 40% to Sonangol, he contin- major, TotalEnergies (France), had set a rough
ued. The partners expect development costs for deadline for deciding whether to proceed with
offshore fields in the Namibe basin to average an upstream project offshore Angola.
$50-60 per barrel, while each large commer- Upstream Online said on March 15, citing
cial discovery may generate $20-40bn worth of sources with direct knowledge of the matter, that
budget revenues for the state, he said. the French giant intended to make a final invest-
He went on to say that the Angolan govern- ment decision (FID) on the Cameia-Golfinho
ment saw the deals as a means of attracting new initiative in mid-2023. The sources did not say
investment into the oil sector, which accounts whether TotalEnergies had set a specific target
for more than 90% of the country’s exports. date, but it did note that the company was run-
These upstream projects will complement ning about six months behind schedule.
efforts to privatise state-owned enterprises to Patrick Pouyanné, TotalEnergies’ CEO, had
diversify the economy, he said. said last September that the French major hoped
Meanwhile, Melissa Bond, ExxonMobil’s to reach the FID milestone in early 2023, in time
country manager for Angola, noted that the to start production in 2026. However, Upstream
Namibe basin would pose significant technical Online sources said that the company was wait-
challenges, as it was still largely uncharted. ing for Angola’s government to approve its pro-
“It is an inherently risky basin, but we truly posed field development plan (FDP).
believe that if we combine our state-of-the-art The Cameia-Golfinho project would target
technology with our capacity to execute and fields straddling two offshore sites – Block 20/11
materialise the projects, we as a company can and Block 21/09. The combined deepwater site
make Namibe happen in the event of a com- may hold as much as 420mn barrels of crude oil
mercial discovery,” she was quoted as saying by and might see production peak at 70,000 barrels
Ver Angola. per day (bpd), Pouyanné said last autumn. ™

PERFORMANCE
Capacity utilisation rising at Nigeria LNG

NIGERIA NIGERIA LNG (NLNG) has reportedly seen The LNG plant had seen output decline
utilisation rates rise since the start of 2023, mak- significantly in late 2022 due to flooding that
ing a partial recovery from the production issues affected all but three of Nigeria’s 36 states and
it experienced in the fourth quarter of last year. led NLNG to declare force majeure in October.

NLNG operates a six-train gas liquefaction plant on Bonny Island (Photo: NLNG)

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