January 25, 2008 By Citizen M

Tom Nicholls: To pump or not to pump

Angola’s Opec cap is a headache for oil majors active in the country’s costly deep-water areas and will do no favours to the world oil-supply picture. By Tom Nicholls Earlier this month, ExxonMobil started production from the giant Kizomba C development, offshore Angola. The 0.6 billion barrel oil project – which has the capacity to produce 200,000 barrels of oil a day – is a milestone for the US supermajor, the operator, and for the country. In technical terms, the development is a major achievement: located in more than 800 metres of water, over 145 km offshore, the resource is being produced with two floating production, storage, and offloading vessels and 36 subsea wells, making it ExxonMobil’s biggest subsea development. It is significant financially too: with its 40% equity share, even a company the size of ExxonMobil can expect some material uplift to its upstream profile. 20angola-2-650.jpg Desidério da Costa, Angola’s oil minister. Angola’s new Opec production quota is incompatible with the major upstream investment plans under way