West Africa Key Projects and Business Highlights 2014
From the 54 countries of the Africa continent, 16 were producing oil in 2010. On the last decade, the producing countries have proven to generate an higher growth than the non-producing countries.
In this game, West Africa plays a leading role with key countries such as Angola, Cameroon, Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Namibia, Nigeria and South Africa.
According to the US Energy Intelligence Agency (EIA), the proven reserves of crude oil in Africa have more than doubled from 55 billion barrels in 1980 to 125 billion barrels in 2012.
This evolution results from the intensive exploration campaigns led mostly offshore the west coast of Africa.
After exploring the shallow waters on the West African coast, the lessons learnt from the deep water offshore Brazil and its pre-salt discoveries guided the International oil companies such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Total, Eni, to explore the untapped deep offshore reserves on the West African side.
Angola discoveries to boost Eni Block 15/06 FPSOs
The Italian major company Eni and its partners SSI Fifteen Ltd (SSI Fifteen),Sonangol, Total, Falcon Oil Holding Angola SA (Falcon) and Statoil made two significant discoveries in the deep water of the Block 15/06 offshore Angola that should boost the deployment of the floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels on the West Hub and East Hub projects.
Congo opens doors to Eni offshore developments
Last December Eni CEO Paulo Scaroni hosted a meeting in Roma with the President of Republic of Congo (Congo Brazzaville) to review the major discoveries made by the Italian company that could boost the economical and social development of the African country. In that respect the on going execution of the Litchendjili gas field project is paving the way to the development on fast track of the new Nene Marine project.
Ophir FLNG to run fast track in Equatorial Guinea
The London-based junior company Ophir Energy plc (Ophir) has appointed the engineering company Petrofac from UK, to support them for the development of the natural gas reserves held in the Block R, offshore Equatorial Guinea on the west coast of Africa. While listed in UK with main operations office in Perth, Ophir is focusing on Africa for exploration and production opportunities, mainly in Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Equatorial Guinea.
Sunbird to develop South Africa largest offshore gas field
The Australian company Sunbird Energy (Sunbird) and its local partner, the national oil company (NOC) PetroSA, are considering to use a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel to develop the Ibhubesi gas field offshore the west coast of South Africa. Discovered in 1981 by Forest Oil Corporation (Forest Oil) and Anschutz Corporation (Anschutz), theIbhubesi gas field belongs to the Production Right Block 2A covering 5,000 square kilometers in the Orange Basin approximately 100 kilometers offshore the Northern Cape Province.
