Angolan Plus BP Equals Oil

BP’s exploration in province of Angola.The new exploration will boost Angola's output from 930,000 bpd today to 1.7m bpd by 2006, making it Africa's second-biggest producer after Nigeria.

The cost of this project is about $20bn.Encouraged by their deep-water successes, consortia led by BP, TotalFinaElf, ExxonMobil, and state oil company Sonangol (in a special partnership with Norsk Hydro) paid more than $1.2bn in signature bonuses since 1999 for rights to four licences in even deeper waters than the existing discoveries.

The first well will be drilled in October.

Any discovery in this new area will have to contain 400mb or so of oil to be viable as a stand-alone development, though smaller fields can be developed if they are tied to nearby deepwater projects.

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