Statoil Announces Major Oil Discovery Offshore Angola


The partners in block 15/06 announce a successful oil discovery in the Cabaça South East-2 well in block 15/06, located offshore Angola.

“I am very pleased with the successful discovery in block 15/06. This illustrates that this profilic basin will continue to deliver significant volumes to Statoil, also in the future,” says senior vice president for Statoil’s Global Exploration, Tim Dodson.

Statoil holds a 5% stake in block 15/06, which has proven to be an important venture for the company enabling Statoil to deepen its knowledge of the deep water reservoir in Angola.

“To date seven out of eight exploration wells have been commercial discoveries, which proves that our exploration activities carried out so far have been a success,” says Dodson.

All exploration activities have been carried out in full compliance with safety and environmental protection standards.

The Cabaça South East-2 well, located at a depth of 470 meters, at a distance of about 100 km from the coast, successfully appraised the Cabaça South East discovery.

During production tests, the well flowed high quality 34° API degrees oil at rates of about 7,000 barrels/day. The rates were limited by surface facilities.

Evaluations indicate that the appraisal well has increased the initial estimate of oil in place for the discovery by 30% and that a second productive hub in the North East area, which will double the expected production of block 15/06, is now a reality. Eni will work together with Sonangol and partners to accelerate the development of this second hub.

Eni has a 35% working interest and is the operator in block 15/06, while Sonangol E&P is the concessionaire.

Angola is a key building block for Statoil’s international production growth. We’ve been in the country for 19 years and are now partners in nine producing fields, which contribute more than 200,000 barrels of equity production per day to our portfolio.

The Angolan continental shelf is the largest contributor to Statoil’s production outside Norway. It yielded 37 % of our total international oil and gas output in 2009.

In addition to block 15/06 Statoil is partner in blocks 15, 17, and 31 and 4 offshore Angola.

[mappress]

Source: Statoil,September 29, 2010