Angola: The Emerging Petroleum Giant of Sub-Saharan Africa

Tako Koning
ChevronTexaco Angola, Luanda, Angola

Angola is currently producing about 1.2 million barrels of oil per day and is the second largest oil producer after Nigeria in the sub-Sahara of Africa. The production is entirely obtained from the Lower Congo Basin which covers an area of over 100,000 square kilometers. Due to the exploration successes experienced by industry during the past 8 years, Angola has become one of the premier countries worldwide for deepwater petroleum exploration.

Until 2001, almost all of Angola's production was obtained from Albian shallow water carbonates of the Pinda formation as well as from pre-salt Neocomian age lacustrine clastics and carbonates. Recoverable reserves of about 3 billion barrels of oil have been discovered in the Pinda and presalt reservoirs. Salt rafting and down-to-the basin gravity sliding of Pinda “rafts” has resulted in numerous oil fields which consist of separate blocks of carbonate, each with distinctive hydrocarbon contacts. Indeed, the global type area for salt raft tectonics is the continental margin of Angola.

In 1996, Elf discovered the Girassol field in Oligocene-age turbidite clastics. The water depth of the field is 1400 meters. Since 2001, Girassol has been on production at a constant 200,000 BOPD. Production of up to 30,000 BOPD has been achieved from single wells. Since 1996, about 50 oil fields with recoverable reserves of some 14 billion barrels have been discovered in the Tertiary sediments of the Congo Basin. The reservoirs all occur in Miocene and Oligocene turbidites associated with the ancestral Congo River drainage system.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90039©2005 AAPG Calgary, Alberta, June 16-19, 2005