Angola's largest private oil and gas company Azule Energy plans to raise production by around 14% to 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) by 2026, its CEO said on Thursday, in a boost to the country's plans to turn around flagging output.
Azule Energy, a 50/50 joint venture between Eni and BP formed last year when the two companies consolidated their Angolan assets.
The company plans to drill 16 exploration wells over the next four years, including its first gas-specific well in 2024, CEO Adriano Mongini told Reuters in an interview, with the combined capex for exploration and production at $7 billion until 2027.
"By 2026 we expect to produce an average of 250,000 barrels of oil per day. The present production is around 220,000 barrels and most of (the) increased... production will be through operated projects that are ongoing now," he said.
Key to higher output will be the Agogo Integrated West Hub, with the development of both the Agogo and Ndungu fields that contain an estimated 500 million barrels of recoverable reserves.
The project includes the delivery of a new floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO), the first destined for Angolan waters in more than seven years, which is currently under construction.
Mongini said first output from the group's New Gas Consortium (NGC), which is developing gas production from two offshore platforms and an onshore processing plant, was expected around February 2026, five months earlier than originally predicted.
NGC is Angola's first non-associated gas project and includes Chevron, TotalEnergies, and BP among the partners.
The gas produced will be connected to the Angola LNG terminal, which has traditionally used gas associated with oil production, in a bid to secure and bolster feedstock.
He said NGC could take Angola LNG's production up to or beyond its 1 billion scuf (standard cubic feet) per day capacity, from 700 million-800 million scuf per day now.
(Reuters - Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Additional reporting by Tannur Anders; Editing by Alexander Winning and Jan Harvey)