• Wednesday, 16 May, 2012

BP floats ideas for Angola play

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 27 May 2004 23:06 GMT

BP is examining whether one or two floating production units will be enough to drain its trio of discoveries in the ultra-deep block 31 concession off Angola.
The supermajor is putting together a project team as it weighs its development options.

“We are building that organisation now,” confirmed Mike Drennon, BP's director of the block 18 business unit in Angola. “We do believe that we have established critical mass to justify development,” he said.

“It is clear that the optimum development entails a combination of FPSO with subsea architecture,” Drennon said, adding that the field layout does not lend itself to a spar or a tension-leg platform-style of development.

“The question is: one or more FPSOs? And that would be a matter of optimisation around the trade-offs between risers and subsea architecture.”

Water depths in the area are about 2000 metres.

He said the company is continuing to define the field layout, which he likened to Great Plutonio in that they both are geographically spread as far as 30 kilometres apart.

However, unlike Greater Plutonio, the quality of crude is inferior with the block 31 finds revealed so far having API gravity ratings of between 22 and 27 degrees.

The discoveries BP has identified in the area include Marte, Plutao and Saturno.

Meanwhile, BP plans to move toward the southern end of the block to explore sub-salt trends beneath waters as deep as 2800 metres. “We will move into an active exploration phase close to the end of this year,” Drennon said.

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