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A 120MW bioethanol power plant being developed by Odebrecht and a Singapore-based company owned by a close associate of President José Eduardo dos Santos is expected to start up this month. On 25 May, Companhia de Bioenergia de Angola (Biocom) institutional relations director Luis Bagorro told industry minister Bernarda Martins that the Cacuso ethanol power plant on a sugar estate in Malanje Province was expected to start operations on 16 June.

Ocean Rig has secured a new contract with Eni for the drillship Ocean Rig Olympia to drill offshore Angola starting in Q3 2015 for a minimum of eight months, with a total contract backlog of about $91m. Eni has also extended a contract for the drillship Ocean Rig Poseidon for a further year until Q2 2017, with total contract backlog now standing at about $367m.

Puma Energy, whose largest shareholder is Trafigura, has opened one of the world’s largest conventional buoy mooring (CBM) systems in Luanda bay. The fuel loading buoy anchored offshore will allow carriers to berth while loading or offloading oil products. The CBM is located next to Puma Energy’s Fishing Port Terminal in the bay, which is being extended, and will have a total storage capacity of 276,000m3.

ConocoPhillips has had another disappointment in the Kwanza Basin with the Omosi-1 well on Block 37. The company said the well had been drilled to 6,300 metres total depth and had encountered a 160 metre gas column. No further activity is planned, and the well has been plugged and abandoned. After Cobalt’s big Cameia discovery on Block 21 in February 2012 and Maersk’s smaller 2011 Azul find on Block 23, there were high hopes for the Kwanza Basin. Angola had hoped the pre-salt play would deliver the same success as on the other side of the Atlantic, but it has not been an unqualified success.

Vaalco Energy’s first exploration well in Block 5 has found a water-bearing reservoir and will be plugged and abandoned. The Kindele-1 well was drilled to a total depth of 1,829 metres, targeting the Mucanzo sand formation in the Pinda Group section.“We are disappointed with the outcome of this first well drilled offshore Angola. The well targeted a three-way fault closure where the fault appears to have not provided the required lateral seal. The Mucanzo target sands were present and of a very high quality.

Houston-based Vaalco Energy announced on 2 March it had spudded the post-salt Kindele-1 well, the company’s first on Block 5. The well will test a fault block adjacent to Conoco’s 1988 Mubafo discovery, which tested oil from the oil from the Mucanzo sand section within the Pinda formations. The well is being drilled by the Transocean Celtic Sea semi-submersible rig and is expected to take six weeks. Kindele-1 will be drilled to 1,800 metres to evaluate the Mucanzo sand section, then deepened to 2,250 metres for geological and geophysical correlation.

A commercial agreement on the joint exploitation of hydrocarbons between Angolan national oil company Sonangol and its Congolese equivalent, Cohydro, has sparked controversy in Kinshasa. Key provisions within the agreement remain unclear, and there are fears the deal will reduce Democratic Republic of Congo’s access to potential offshore reserves. The Angolan and Congolese authorities first agreed to look for ways to jointly explore for oil and gas in the Zone d’Intérêt Commun, a 10km offshore corridor covering Angolan blocks 1, 14, 15 and 31, in 2007. But given DRC’s limited access to the sea, and Angola’s determination to maximise its own access to potential oil fields, the stakes have been high and progress has been commensurately slow.

The government has appointed boards for the new power companies formed late last year to replace Empresa Nacional de Electricidade (ENE) and Empresa de Distribuição de Electricidade de Luanda, enabling them to start work in earnest. A cabinet meeting on 6 February approved the appointments, which will pave the way for hoped-for private investment in the sector. The Empresa Nacional de Produção de Electricidade (Prodel) generation company will be headed by António Fernandes Rodrigues Belsa da Costa, former board chairman of state water company Empresa Pública da Aguas (Epal), while former ENE directors Euclides Morais de Brito and Júlio Capitango will be in charge of thermal generation and hydropower, respectively.

Wide-ranging reform of Angola’s power sector is making progress, but with the economy heavily dependent on oil revenues, investment plans could be significantly slowed. Angola-watchers suggest the effects on the domestic economy of sharply lower global oil prices, coupled with the continued uncertainty over veteran President José Eduardo dos Santos’ succession plans, may create a ‘perfect storm’ that could hasten the long-awaited regime change.

Eni announced first oil on 8 December from the West Hub Development Project in Block 15/06. The field is producing 45,000 b/d through the N’Goma floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel, and will increase production to 100,000 b/d in the coming months. The start-up of the East Hub Development, expected in 2017, will raise overall production from Block 15/06 to 200,000 b/d. Eni was awarded the block in a licensing round in 2006, and has drilled 24 exploration and appraisal wells, discovering over 3bn barrels of oil in place and 850m barrels of recoverable reserves.

Statoil has decided to cancel the Stena Carron rig contract after two dry wells on pre-salt targets in Kwanza Basin blocks 38 and 39. “Statoil’s first well results from the area have been disappointing and, although the company still sees remaining prospectivity in the basin and on the Statoil acreage, more time is needed to evaluate the well results and mature new prospects before deciding on future activities,” the company said.So far this year, Statoil has suspended Diamond Offshore’s Ocean Vanguard rig, Saipem’s Scarabeo 5, China Oilfield Services Limited’s COSL Pioneer, Transocean’s Spitsbergen, and Songa Offshore’s Songa Trym.

Sonangol chairman Francisco de Lemos José Maria and Eni chief executive Claudio Descalzi signed a strategic agreement on 17 November on co-operation activities and joint projects. Under the agreement, Eni and Sonangol will set up a joint team aimed at studying the potential of the non-associated gas in the Lower Congo Basin.The study will analyse the different options for monetising the gas, both internationally and in the domestic market, where gas will have a crucial role in supporting the local economy.

Eni has made a tenth oil discovery in Block 15/06, with a well on the Ochigufu exploration prospect, estimated to contain 300m barrels of oil in place. Eni said the Ochigufu 1 NFW well would be brought into production “in record time”. The well was drilled by the Ocean Rig Poseidon in a water depth of 1,337 metres, reaching a total depth of 4,470 metres. The well, located some 150km off the coast and 9.8km from the Ngoma floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel, encountered 47 metres of net oil pay in the Lower Miocene and Oligocene sandstones.

The Energy and Water Ministry has announced plans to dissolve Empresa Nacional de Electricidade (ENE) and Empresa de Distribução de Electricidade de Luanda (Edel) by year-end and replace them with new bodies as part of a complete reform of the power sector. The move aims to help the authorities meet the challenge of multiplying generation capacity ninefold by 2025, from 1GW to 9GW, mainly through the construction of hydropower and gas-fired plants. The government’s power sector transformation plan, known by its Portuguese acronym PTSE, also aims to complete the interconnection of the separate northern, central, southern and eastern grids, and improve the sector’s finances. At present, tariffs only cover 20% of costs.

Houston-based Cobalt International Energy has cut ties with its Angolan partners after the latest approach from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC issued Cobalt with a ‘Wells notice’ in early August in relation to its operations in Angola, where it holds interests in blocks 9, 20 and 21. The SEC sends a Wells notice to companies or individuals when it is planning to bring charges against them, but it is neither a formal allegation nor a finding of wrongdoing.