Angola To Maintain Crude Output At 1.1m Bpd Into 2024

Posted by African Examiner Latest Headlines, News Around Africa, Politics, South Africa, Southern Africa Friday, October 20th, 2023

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – An Official on Thursday said Angola plans to maintain its current crude oil production of 1.1 million barrels a day (bpd) into 2024.

Belarmino Chitangueleca, Executive Director at the National Agency of Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG) said the country expects to maintainits goal even as the country looks to stabilise declining output from mature fields.

Chitangueleca told Reuters in an interview that Angola would announce the winning bidders for its latest onshore licensing round by March.

Africa’s second-largest crude oil exporter has seen output decline steadily since hitting a peak of 2 million bpd in 2008. It is looking to diversify more into gas to counter part of the decline.

Chitangueleca said the country could set up a second LNG train, which processes and converts natural gas into a super-cooled liquid, to export additional gas, but did not give a timeframe for that.

He said, “I am sure we will have enough gas to justify adding a second train. We will capitalise on this opportunity.”

Earlier, the Chief Executive of Azule Energy, Angola’s largest private oil and Gas Company, said first output from the group’s New Gas Consortium (NGC) was expected around February 2026, five months ahead of schedule.

NGC includes Chevron (CVX.N), TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) and BP (BP.L) among other partners and will be Angola’s first project to produce non-associated gas, meaning gas not normally found with oil discoveries.

The gas produced will be connected to the Angola LNG terminal. (Reuters/NAN)