Angola offers 10 blocks for lease award in mid-2008
HOUSTON, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Sonangol, the national oil company of Angola, on Thursday invited oil companies to bid on leasing 10 blocks, including onshore and offshore prospects, with concessions to be awarded in mid-2008.
Sonangol estimates potential recovery at nearly 7 billion barrels on six deepwater prospects offered. Three onshore and one shallow water prospect also offered may contain hundreds of millions more, officials said.
Sonangol will take bids between Dec. 13 and March 13, open bids publicly on March 14 and approve new concessions by June 20, with formal contracts to be signed by July 1, 2008, officials said.
Sonangol defines deepwater as 500 meters (1,640 feet) and deeper, and ultra-deepwater as 2,000 meters (6,562 feet) and deeper, officials said.
The deepwater prospects, near several recently announced large discoveries, were the most interesting to major international companies, participants said.
"I think the level of interest is high given BP Plc's (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) recent success in Block 31," said Gregg Blake, representing Murphy Exploration & Production Co (MUR.N: Quote, Profile, Research).
The goal of the onshore and shallow water offerings is to attract smaller independents and Angolan private firms to diversify the nation's oil industry, said Tim Zorba of IHS Inc (IHS.N: Quote, Profile, Research), which is helping Sonangol offer the leases.
Shallow water prospects off Angola were explored in the 1960s and '70s with then-available technology, participants said. "There's a tremendous amount to go back to with today's technology," said Allan Millmaker of Pentomino Producing LLC.
The Houston presentation was the second of three planned by Sonangol, but the first open to the news media. Sonangol presented in Luanda, Angola, last week and plans to meet potential investors again in London on Oct. 30.
Next article is interesting regarding record bonuses for offshore licences.
This is translated from German about the activity of the italian ENI from April 2007:
But that all oil companies will not prevent their fortune in Africa. The deepwater areas offshore Nigeria are still attractive, and the country plans to expand its oil production by 2010 to 200 million tonnes. In Libya, after the lifting of sanctions and American oil companies have returned to competition among potential investors tightened. In Angola paid the Italian ENI and the Chinese Sinopec record bonuses for offshore licences, and in the next round of award Sonangol, the Angolan government will push back.
The Italian ENI is one of the most active companies in the Oil exploration in Africa. Besides Angola are Tunisia, Mali, Algeria, Egypt, Libya and Nigeria to the areas of strategic importance for the growth of our own production. For ENI recently with the bore Lucapa-1 about 400 km northwest of Luanda (Angola) in the Atlantic Ocean to a new oil deposits encountered. Lucapa-1 lies in the so-called "Block 14", in which ENI 20 percent of the shares.
ENI is already in Angola since the early eighties and promotes represented there are currently about 160,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. By 2009, through the use of reserves in deep waters to increase the flow of 200,000 barrels a day.
link for the complete article with automatic google translation:
