Benguela Belize - Lobito Tomboco Development, Block 14: Angola's Next Deepwater Hub

By

Leite da Costa¹, Mark Krolow², Robert Elder²

(1) Sonangol DPP, Luanda, Angola (2) Chevrontexaco Overseas Petroleum, Luanda, Angola

 Since the mid-1990s offshore Angola has been a world class exploration province and recent deep water discoveries have been among the world's largest finds.

ChevronTexaco and it’s Block 14 partners (Sonangol P&P, TotalFinaElf, AGIP and Petrogal) have made seven discoveries in the highly prospective Block 14 including: Kuito (1997), Landana, Benguela and Belize (1998), Tomboco and Lobito (2000) and recently Tombua.

The Benguela Belize - Lobito Tomboco (BB-LT) complex. located in the northern portion of Block 14, is scheduled for first oil in 2005. Seven main oil pools make up the development with oil in place approaching 1.5 billion barrels. The complex consists of multiple pools vertically stacked and grouped geographically around structural traps. These characteristics enable production facilities to tap multiple accumulations adding value to the infrastructure. Reservoir properties are excellent (25 to 32 % porosity,1 to 4 darcies permeability with 24-38 degree API gravity oil), and channel-axis sands are highly prolific with average individual DST’s in excess of 10,000 STBOPD.

The BB-LT project will take place in 1300 feet of water and will involve 2 phases of development. The Phase 1 BB development will involve West Africa's first Compliant Piled Tower and a drilling and production topside facility. The facilities are currently designed to process 140,000 STBOPD, 220 MM SCFD gas compression, 240,000 BWPD processing, and 230,000 BWPD injection. Phase 2 of the project encompasses the tie back of the LT fields to the BB Hub using subsea technologies and installation of a 80,000 STBOPD capacity expansion module.