Italian oil and gas company Eni and its partners have commenced production from the Cabaça South East field, marking the start of the East Hub Development project, in the Block 15/06 of the Angolan deep offshore.
The field has commenced production five months ahead of schedule and forms part of the East Hub Development Project, which also includes development of the Cabaça North discovery located approximately 350km north-east of Luanda, Angola and within Block 15/06.
According to estimates, the two discoveries have combined oil reserves of approximately 230 million barrels.
Eni operates Block 15/06 with a 36.84% stake while other partners include Sonangol Pesquisa e Produção with 36.84% interest and SSI Fifteen Limited with 26.32% stake.
The Armada Olombendo Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel is being used for the production of the Cabaça South East field.
The vessel is designed to generate up to 80,000 barrels of oil per day and compress up to 3.4 million cubic meters of gas per day.
Eni said that the production from the East Hub Project will add to production from the existing West Hub Project in the Sangos, Cinguvu and Mpungi fields.
Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said: “Leveraging our extensive experience in exploration, we have been able to discover a total of 3 billion barrels of oil in place through 10 commercial discoveries.
“This is yet another example of Eni’s Angolan and worldwide capability to deliver state-of-the-art projects, and was made possible by Eni’s new operational model, where we play an increasingly active role in the integrated development of our projects.”
In 2017, the Block 15/06 is expected to reach a peak production capacity of 150,000 barrels of oil per day.
The firm noted that the Cabaça South East field brings its total number of production fields to five with two more fields planned to start by the end of next year.
Image: The Armada Olombendo FPSO vessel at sea. Photo: courtesy of Eni.