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CAPE TOWN, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Angola wants to cash in on the
roughly 3 billion cubic feet per day of associated natural gas
it produces, most of which is now flared, the petroleum minister
said on Wednesday.
The announcement of efforts to generate more revenues by
reducing gas flaring comes as Africa's second largest crude
producer faces a fall in output from its mature oil fields.
"Over the years, Angola has somewhat neglected to capitalise
on the natural resources that it has to offer," Mineral
Resources and Petroleum Minister Diamantino Azevedo said in a
brochure released at an African energy conference in Cape Town.
He said Angola produced about 3 billion cubic feet per day
of associated natural gas, or gas found in association with oil
in a reservoir.
"Much of this gas was burned or flared and an opportunity
for financial recovery was missed, not to mention the damage
that was done to the environment," he said, without giving the
precise volume that was flared.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in June
said Angola's total natural gas output in 2016 was 413 billion
cubic feet, of which 254 billion cubic feet was flared, 88
billion cubic feet was reinjected and 60 billion cubic feet
sold. The EIA cited figures from gas data firm Cedigaz.
Methane that leaks during oil production and CO2 generated
when gas is flared are both greenhouse gases.
Angola is developing a $12 billion offshore project to
produce 5.2 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) a year
for export. Angola LNG is a partnership of state-owned Sonangol,
Chevron, BP, Eni and Total.
"We are in the process of leveraging other industrial
projects for gas monetisation, such as fertiliser factories,"
the minister said.
Angola's oil ministry said last year crude output could fall
to 1 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2023 from 1.9 million bpd
in 2008, unless there was fresh investment.
Under a deal on supply restraint agreed by the Organization
of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Angola said it was
committed not to produce more than 1.6 million bpd of crude.
"The decline in production is the result of the natural
process of field maturation and a lack of investment in resource
research and preventative maintenance of equipment," Azevedo
said.
To help address this, he said the government was offering
onshore and offshore exploration blocks, including the "highly
promising yet largely unexplored" interior basins.
(Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Editing by Tim Cocks and Edmund
Blair)
