The first production from Angola's deepwater Dalia field in Block 17 has started. Hydro has 10 percent stake in the field, which is operated by Total.
"Next year the production from Dalia will increase Hydro's net production to 32,000 barrels per day for Angola Business Unit," says Eva Ljosland, Hydro's asset manager for block 17 offshore Angola.
Discovered in September 1997 and located some 135 kilometers off the coast in water depths ranging from 1,200 to 1,500 metres, Dalia contains close to one billion barrels of recoverable reserves.
It is the largest deepwater development to be brought onstream this year and among the largest projects of its kind in the world.
Challenging project
The development of Dalia, which has been completed on time, illustrates the abilities of the development teams to tackle even the most challenging projects and environments successfully.
Moreover, Dalia has helped strengthen the Angolan specialized oil industry, creating jobs and transferring technology through the establishment of modern factories in Luanda, Lobito and Dande for the manufacture of the sophisticated industrial equipment used in the project.
The Dalia field is developed with 71 wells – 37 producers, 31 wells for water injection and three for gas injection, tied into 9 manifolds.
The subsea installation has 40 kilometers of insulated production flowlines, linked to eight high-tech flexible risers specially manufactured for the project and taking the fluid up to a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel, which has an oil treatment capacity of 240,000 barrels oil per day and a storage capacity of two million barrels.
Block 17
Deep offshore Block 17 is composed of four major zones:
- Girassol, which is in production
- Dalia, which is now also in production
- Pazflor, where development studies are underway
- CLOV, a fourth major production zone based on Cravo, Lirio, Orquidea and Violeta currently being studied
On the Girassol structure, production from the Girassol field and the Jasmim field, a satellite to Girassol that came on stream in November 2003, averaged more than 250,000 barrels per day of oil in 2006.
The Rosa field, developed as a 15 kilometer tie-back to the Girassol FPSO facility, was approved in July 2004 and is scheduled to come on stream in the first half of 2007. It is expected to maintain the production of the FPSO at its plateau of 250,000 barrels per day over a number of years.
The Angolan state oil company Sonangol is block 17 concessionaire.
Partners in block 17:
| Total E&P Angola (operator) | 40.00 percent |
| Esso Exploration & Production Angola (Overseas) limited | 20.00 percent |
| BP Exploration (Angola) Ltd. | 16.67 percent |
| Statoil Angola Block 17 AS | 13.33 percent |
| Hydro | 10.00 percent |