Eni produces first oil from East Hub project off Angola

Italian oil company Eni has started production of the East Hub Development Project, deep offshore Angola, in three years from the development plan and five months ahead of schedule. 

The East Hub Development Project is located in Eni-operated Block 15/06 where the Italian company has a 36.84% share, while Sonangol Pesquisa e Produção controls 36.84% and SSI Fifteen Limited controls 26.32%.

The company informed on Wednesday that production is taking place through the Armada Olombendo Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel, which can generate up to 80,000 barrels of oil per day and compress up to 3.4 million cubic meters of gas per day. The FPSO was named in Singapore in October last year. Just last week, Eni named another FPSO in Singapore, the John Agyekum Kufuor FPSO, which will operate on the Offshore Cape Three Points block off Ghana.

With 9 wells and 4 manifolds at a water depth of 450 meters, the FPSO Olombendo will put into production the Cabaça South East field, 350 kilometers northwest of Luanda and 130 kilometers west of Soyo.

According to Eni, production from the East Hub Project will add to production from the existing West Hub Project in the Sangos, Cinguvu and Mpungi fields, where another vessel, the FPSO N’Goma, is operating. In total, Block 15/06 will reach a peak of 150,000 barrels of oil per day this year.

“We are proud of what we have achieved in Block 15/06,” said Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi. “Leveraging our extensive experience in exploration, we have been able to discover a total of 3 billion barrels of oil in place through 10 commercial discoveries. Moreover, thanks to strong field development and project management, we are beginning production of the East Hub with a time-to-market of only 3 years, and 5 months ahead of schedule.

“Cabaça South East brings our number of fields in production to 5, with 2 more expected to start before the end of 2018.”