"According to our estimates, in the absence of new discoveries, production is expected to start declining from 2012 onwards," World Bank economist Francisco Carneiro told Reuters via email yesterday.

State-run oil company Sonangol was unavailable for comment.

Angolan oil production, buoyed by the end of a 27-year civil war in 2002 and heavy foreign investment from oil majors like ExxonMobil and Chevron, has risen more than 10 per cent to 1,4 million barrels per day since last year.

Output is expected to hit two million bpd in 2007.

The World Bank warned that the southwest African country was risking the "resource curse" unless it better managed its oil revenue to fuel economic growth, according to a Bank report released earlier this month.

Already sub-Saharan Africa's second largest oil producer after Nigeria, Angola is also one of the fastest growing economies in the world, projected to grow 31,4 per cent in 2007 according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Bank's projection comes on the heels of the Angolan government's announcement that it will be joining oil-producers group Opec - responsible for over a third of the world's crude oil production - in March next year.

The move came despite a US plea for Angola to remain independent of the cartel.

Angola's relations with the United States and international bodies, including the World Bank and the IMF, have been strained due to the bank's concerns about corruption and a lack of democratic progress in the former Portuguese colony.

The government in Luanda has responded by strengthening political and financial ties with developing nations, particularly China, which has provided more than US$3 billion in oil-backed credit and loans since 2005.

Nampa-Reuters

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