Drilling Deep Oil Reserves Offshore Angola

In an advisory, Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources Inc. Houston, Texas)reports that Girassol, the Angolan offshore, deepwater oil project run by TotalFinaElf is set to raise the country's daily output by over 25% from 750,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 950,000 bpd. The $2.7 billion project is expected to start pumping by the end of 2001 and to have 40 wells at a depth of 1,360m producing 200,000 bpd. It is estimated that a number of the wells could produce 40,000 bpd. Partners in Block 17 with TotalFinaElf are Exxon-Mobil, BP, Statoil from Norway and Norsk Hydro with stakes ranging from 10% to 20%. Claiming that the 1,300m riser tower is the tallest offshore structure in the world, the company has installed a floating storage and production vessel (FPSO) with a capacity of two million barrels of crude. The potential of this and two other discoveries in the area with a combined total of around three billion barrels has motivated the company to meet and solve the challenges of ultra deep water drilling. Industrialinfo.com provides daily news related to the industrial market place including industry alerts and databases for the energy and industrial markets.