Eni kicks off West Hub project in Angolan deep offshore

(AGI) Rome, Dec 8 - Italian energy company Eni inaugurated theproduction of the West Hub development project in Block 15/06,in the Angolan deep offshore, at approximately 350 km northeastof the capital Luanda and 130 km east of the city of Soyo,reported the company in a statement. The production, deliveredthrough the FPSO N'Goma vessel, currently amounts to 45,000barrels of oil per day. The production ramp-up will becompleted during the upcoming months, ultimately reaching up to100,000 barrels of oil per day. Block 15/06 also includes theEast Hub Development, which is expected to start production in2017, enabling Block 15/06 to comprehensively produce 200,000barrels of oil per day. The project follows a major explorationsuccess in Block 15/06, which was adjudicated to Eni in 2006 atthe end of an international tendering procedure and where Enihas drilled 24 exploration and appraisal wells, discoveringover three billion barrels of oil in place and 850 millionbarrels of reserves. This first result was efficiently followedup: the discoveries were developed quickly, achieving anindustry-leading time to market of only 44 months from theDeclaration of Commercial Discovery, thanks to the applicationof a new modular development model. The West Hub Developmentproject will be tied to the N'Goma FPSO and entails thesequential start-up of the Sangos, Cinguvu, Mpungi, MpungiNorth Area, Vandumbu e Ochigufu fields. Eni intends to continueits exploration programme in the Block and eventual additionaldiscoveries will be linked to the FPSO within a limitedtimeframe and at limited costs, by increasing and extending theproduction in the Hub. A recent example of this approach can bedrawn from the discovery of the Ochigufu oil field, to be tiedto the N'Goma FPSO within the next two years, and which hasreached a production of 300 million barrels of oil in place.This important result was celebrated in Luanda on Monday, in aceremony attended by Angolan Oil Minister, Jose' Maria BotelhoDe Vasconcelos, Eni CEO, Claudio Descalzi, the president ofSonanagol, Francisco de Lemos Jose' Maria, and representativesof Angola's oil&gas sector and Eni managers. Eni is theoperator of Block 15/06 with a 35 percent stake, while SonangolEP is the concessionaire. The other partners of the jointventure are Sonangol Pesquisa e Producao with a 35 percentstake, SSI Fifteen Limited with 25 percent, and Falcon OilHolding Angola SA with 5 percent. Angola is key in Eni'sorganic growth strategy and has been present in the countrysince 1980, with a daily production in 2013 of 87,000 barrelsof oil equivalent. (AGI).