Eni fires up Ochigufu project off Angola

Italian oil company Eni and Angola’s Sonangol have started oil production from the Ochigufu project, in Block 15/06 of Angola’s deep offshore.

The field will add 25,000 barrels to the current production levels, Eni said on Friday.

The Ochigufu field is located in 1300 m of water depth in Angola’s deep offshore, at approximately 150 km west from Soyo and 380 km North West from Luanda.

The wells are connected subsea to the Sangos production system and from there tied in to the N’Goma FPSO vessel in the West Hub of Block 15/06 (Eni 36,84%, Operator; Sonangol Pesquisa e Produção 36,84%; SSI Fifteen Limited 26,32%).

This start-up, achieved one and a half year from presentation of the Plan of Development, is the first for Eni in 2018 as well as the first start-up of the year in Angola. It represents a further step in the development of the prolific Block 15/06, where Eni discovered over 3 billion barrels of oil in place and 850 million barrels of reserves.

These discoveries were then developed, with the sequential start-up of the Sangos field in 2014, Cinguvu in 2015, Mpungi and Mpungi North in 2016, East Hub in 2017 and now Ochigufu. The subsequent start-up in this block in 2018 will be the UM8 reservoir in East Hub and the Subsea Boosting System for Mpungi field, while Vandumbu field, in West Hub is expected to start production in early 2019.

These three start-ups will increase overall production by further 30,000 barrels.