Eni in new oil find offshore Angola

Italian oil company Eni has made a new oil discovery in the Afoxé exploration prospect located in Block 15/06, offshore Angola. The discovery is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million barrels of light oil in place.

Eni said on Monday that the Afoxé-1 NFW well, which has led to the new oil discovery, is located in the south-east area of Block 15/06, approximately 120 km off the coast, 50 km south-west from the Olombendo FPSO and 20 km west of the recent Kalimba-1 discovery. The well was drilled in a water depth of 780 meters and reached a total depth of 1,723 meters.

According to Eni, Afoxé-1 NFW proved a 20 meters net oil pay of high quality oil (37° API) contained in Upper Miocene sandstones with excellent petrophysical properties.

The well has not been tested but an intensive data collection has been carried out that indicates a production capacity in excess of 5,000 barrels of oil per day. The new nearby discoveries of Kalimba and Afoxé are now accounting together a potential of 400 – 500 mboe of high quality oil in place and represent a new cluster that can be exploited jointly in a new development concept.

Afoxé discovery is a further confirmation of the oil exploration potential still held in southern part of Block 15/06, previously considered mainly gas prone. Eni is planning to drill up to four new exploration wells back to back in Block 15/06 during 2019.

Eni CEO, Claudio Descalzi, said: “Eni is committed to developing this discovery leveraging its best-in-class time-to-market, whilst at the same time launching an intense exploration campaign that will fully support the company’s mid-term organic growth in the country.”

Block 15/06 is developed by a Joint Venture formed by Eni (36.84%, Operator), Sonangol P&P (36.84%) and SSI Fifteen Limited (26.32%).

Back in November, Eni signed an agreement with Sonangol to expand the perimeter of the offshore Block 15/06. With this agreement in place, the block now covers an additional area of 400 km2 on the west side.

Eni’s Block 15/06 is located approximately 350 km north-west of Luanda and 130 km west of Soyo in water depths ranging from 200 m to 1,800 m. The developed fields Sangos, Cinguvu, Mpungi, Ochigufu e Cabaça S.E. are tied back to two FPSOs installed in the block, Ngoma and Olombendo, with an overall oil treatment capacity of 200 kbopd.

Ngoma and Olombendo FPSO started production in November 2014 and February 2017, respectively.