Search results

Denmark’s Maersk Oil has announced plans to close its Houston office and reduce its Luanda team to try to reduce capital expenditure and improve returns from the unsanctioned Chissonga project. Maersk said options included a future project developed jointly with other hydrocarbon discoveries in the same region. “Chissonga, like many deep-water projects in our industry, remains economically challenged in the current market environment. Maersk Oil remains committed to the Chissonga project and we have evaluated multiple options to commercialise these resources in the best interests of our partners and the Angolan authorities.

Total E&P Angola has given Technip Angola Engenharia Limitada, a joint venture between Technip and Sonangol, a three-year engineering services contract for the Girassol, Pazflor, Dalia and CLOV floating production, storage and offloading units on Block 17. The scope of work is expected to include engineering, technical assistance, management, supervision and coordination.

Democratic Republic of Congo’s new hydrocarbons minister has rejected an agreement on the offshore Joint Development Zone (JDZ) with Angola and demanded compensation after an Angolan presidential decree in December transferred two fields out of the joint zone into Chevron’s Block 14. On 16 February, André Ngoi Mukena Lusa Diese sent a letter to his Angolan counterpart, José Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos, rejecting the two countries’ 30 July 2007 agreement for the exploration and production of hydrocarbons in the JDZ, a 10km-wide corridor across Angolan offshore blocks 1, 14, 15 and 31 (AE 264/17).

Egypt’s Elsewedy Electric has announced the signing of an engineering, procurement and construction contract for three power generation plants in Angola with a total value of $484.5m. Elsewedy said the contract formed part of Angola’s 2016 Emergency Power Plan to increase generation capacity. The plants will be installed in Luanda’s Camama and Cazenga districts and Lunda Sul province, using GE gas turbines. The contract value includes engineering, procurement and construction plus finance, and the work will be carried out during 2016.

Cobalt International has started winding down its Angolan operations as it proceeds with the sale of its assets to Sonangol. The company said it expected to reduce its global workforce by 50% as it concentrates on its US operations.In August 2015, Cobalt and Sonangol announced an agreement for the sale of Cobalt’s 40% working interest in Angola blocks 20 and 21 for $1.75bn before transaction costs and taxes. Cobalt received the initial payment of $250m in 2015 and expects to close the transaction upon receipt of Angola government approvals.

The 50MW Lomaum dam on the Catumbela River was returned to service on 3 February after rehabilitation work. State news agency Angop said the dam at Cubal, in Benguela province, had been out of action for 31 years. It will enable Empresa Nacional de Distribuição de Electricidade (Ende) to improve supply to 92,000 consumers in the cities of Benguela, Lobito, Catumbela and Baía Farta. The dam started production tests in June 2015 and is now restored to full production. The plant was badly damaged in 1984, during the civil war.

A 26MW biomass power plant is under construction for Companhia Siderúrgica do Cuchi (CSC), owned by Brazilian steelmaker Modulax, to provide energy for its Cutato iron ore mine and pig iron plant. CSC chief executive Geraldo Basques told Cuango Cubango provincial governor Pedro Mutinde that, during its first phase, the project would use 6MW for its own operations and supply the remaining 20MW to the Cuchi area and to the provincial capital Menongue as soon as transmission lines are available.

Some 28 years after its destruction by Cuban Mig fighter planes during the 1975-1991 civil war, the 14MW Calueque hydro plant on the Kunene River will be operational again by year-end. The dam was bombed in 1988 when it was in the hands of the South African Defence Force. A consortium of Mota Engil Africa and Lyon announced in late January that the facility would be rehabilitated this year.

An explosion at Naftal’s butane gas bottling plant in the Skikda industrial zone on 5 January hospitalised 17 people with burns, one of whom is understood to have died from his injuries. The incident appears to be a consequence of inadequate safety measures in the operation of the plant – said to be a widespread problem at Sonatrach’s downstream facilities. In a statement released through Algérie Presse Service, the official state-owned newswire, Naftal said that “the incident has no consequences for the effective supply of the wilaya and the eastern region, which is carrying on as normal”.

After a period of doubt over its future following problems in conflict-hit markets, including Libya, and difficulties repaying debt, London Stock Exchange-listed APR Energy’s shareholders have accepted an investor consortium’s offer to acquire the emergency power provider. The group of Toronto-based Fairfax Financial Holdings and US firms Acon Equity Management and Albright Capital Management plan to take Florida-based APR private; the buyers have committed $200m-plus equity to reduce debt and increase working capital.

Sonangol chairman Francisco de Lemos José Maria and Total president Patrick Pouyanné on 21 December signed what Sonangol termed “an agreement of intent… to explore Angola’s ultra-deepwater West concessions”. Total declined to give further details, but Sonangol has delineated a large ultra-deep area outboard from the existing northern blocks. Sonangol said the agreement was “of great importance in the context of promoting increased investment in Angola’s oil sector”.

Eni has started production from the Mpungi field in the West Hub Development Project on Block 15/06. The start-up of the Mpungi field, which follows the West Hub development’s first oil from the Sangos field in November 2014 and Cinguvu in early April 2015, will bring production to some 100,000 b/d of oil in Q1 2016.The West Hub Development Project comprises the Sangos, Cinguvu, Mpungi, Mpungi North, Ochigufu and Vandumbu fields in water depths ranging from 1,000 to 1,500 metres.

Sonangol has awarded eight onshore blocks in a licensing round launched last year, with all the licences going to local companies. None of the international companies that prequalified for the round have been successful, with the licensing process apparently aimed at boosting the number of indigenous companies. Some of the successful bidders are expected to seek technical co-operation agreements with experienced companies, as in Nigeria, although several licences have Sonangol P&P as a partner.

APR Energy has announced that it has signed a six-month extension to its contract to supply 40MW power from its Rocha Pinto plant near Luanda. The contract, first signed in 2013, was the London-listed company’s first mobile gas turbine project in sub-Saharan Africa. APR Energy also operates a 40MW plant at Morro Bento. “As part of the extension, the customer has reaffirmed its commitment to fulfil all past, present and future financial obligations,” the company said.

Eni has given Technip subsidiaries Technip Umbilicals and Angoflex a contract to supply umbilicals to the Block 15/06 East Hub Development. The field is located 350km north of Luanda, at water depths of 450-600 metres. The contract covers project management and manufacture of about 15km of dynamic and static steel tube umbilicals. Technip Umbilicals’ facility in Lobito with support from Technip Umbilicals in Newcastle UK, will manufacture the umbilicals that are scheduled to be completed in H2 2016.