Angola oil sales slip but still Africa’s biggest

LONDON – Angola will sell slightly less oil in November than in October, trade data showed on Wednesday, but the holder of the Opec presidency is still due to exceed its production target and will remain Africa’s biggest oil producer.

Preliminary loading programmes from trade sources show the southwestern African country, still recovering from decades of civil war, will export 1,82 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude in November, down from a revised 1,93 million bpd scheduled to load in October.Several crude oil production streams are set to load fewer cargoes, possibly because November is a slightly shorter month than October, but trade sources say Angola is still building up its oil capacity and future production will be higher.’They have more fields to bring on in the next six to nine months, so production is expected to increase,’ said Thomas Pearmain, African energy analyst at IHS Global Insight.Angola is gradually building up its oil industry and its growing offshore oil sector is attracting billions in investment from oil majors in the United States, Europe and Asia.Unlike fellow Opec member Nigeria, Africa’s second biggest producer, Angola is increasingly stable politically and socially. Nigeria’s oil industry has been hampered by a campaign of bombings and attacks by armed militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta region.Data for Nigerian exports in November are not yet available but in October its sales overseas averaged around 1,78 million bpd. Several of its crude oilfields are pumping well below capacity due to attacks that have led to declarations of force majeure by operators, including Royal Dutch Shell Plc.Angola meanwhile is ramping up output on several fronts. US oil major Chevron Corp said last week it started pumping crude from its new Tombua-Landana project offshore Angola.The Chevron-operated US$3,8 billion development is 80 km offshore and is Chevron’s largest project to begin producing oil in 2009, the company said.’The new Tombua-Landana field will eventually produce 100 000 bpd,’ said Pearmain at IHS Global Insight.Oil traders and analysts say the rapid rise in Angolan oil output means it is routinely exceeding its production target.-Nampa-Reuters