French supermajor Total has taken a long-awaited final investment decision on its Zinia 2 development in Block 17 off Angola, writes Barry Morgan.

The project is designed to have a production capacity of up to 40,000 barrels per day and will be tied back to the company's Pazflor floating production, storage and offloading vessel in the same block.

The $1.2 billion Zinia scheme will comprise nine subsea wells in water depths ranging from 600 to 1200 metres.

Total touts the Zinia 2 project as “the first of several possible short-cycle developments” in Angola to extend profitability by connecting satellite reservoirs to existing FPSOs — the other floaters are the Girassol, Dalia and Clov units — on a block which has already pumped some 2.6 billion barrels of oil.

"Thanks to the favourable fiscal framework introduced by the Angolan authorities for satellite developments, other projects similar to Zinia 2 are currently under consideration on Block 17,", said Arnaud Breuillac, Total’s head of exploration and production.

He added that the Zinia 2 project "is a good example of capital expenditure discipline and cost optimisation, simplifying the design while capturing deflation and allowing partners to cut development costs by more than a half".

Upstream reported in February that TechnipFMC and Subsea 7 were battling to land work on Zinia 2, with the London-headquartered player said to have an edge. However, it was unclear if they were bidding an integrated umbilical, riser and flowline and subsea production system contract.

TechnipFMC, Subsea 7 and Saipem, were chasing subsea work on the Dalia 3 project, a tieback to the Dalia FPSO.

Total has a 40% stake in Block 17 and is partnered by Equinor (formerly Statoil) on 23.33%, ExxonMobil on 20%, BP on 16.67% and state-owned concessionaire Sonangol

Elsewhere in Angola, the French giant operates the 650 million barrel Kaombo project in block 32 with a stake of 30%.

A final investment decision was taken in 2014 for a project that involves two FPSOs and which has been hit by significant delays. The first FPSO, Kaombo Norte, is due on stream later this year, with the second unit to follow in 2019.

This project is expected to tap about 650 million barrels of resource, with combined production capacity of the two vessels being 230,000 bpd.

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Zinia 2 go-ahead for Total