Azule Energy’s CEO announced on Thursday that the company, Angola’s largest private oil and gas company, intends to increase its production by approximately 14% to reach 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) by 2026, thereby supporting the country’s efforts to revitalize its declining output.
Azule Energy, a 50/50 joint venture between Eni and BP, was formed last year when the two companies consolidated their Angolan assets.
The company plans to drill 16 exploration wells over the next four years, including its first gas-specific well in 2024, CEO Adriano Mongini told Reuters in an interview, with the combined capex for exploration and production at $7 billion until 2027.
“By 2026, we expect to produce an average of 250,000 barrels of oil per day. The present production is around 220,000 barrels, and most of the increased production will be through operated projects that are ongoing now,” he said.
Key to higher output will be the Agogo Integrated West Hub, with the development of both the Agogo and Ndungu fields that contain an estimated 500 million barrels of recoverable reserves.
The project includes the delivery of a new floating production, storage, and offloading vessel (FPSO), the first destined for Angolan waters in more than seven years, which is currently under construction.
Mongini said the first output from the group’s New Gas Consortium (NGC), which is developing gas production from two offshore platforms and an onshore processing plant, was expected around February 2026, five months earlier than originally predicted.
NGC is Angola’s first non-associated gas project and includes Chevron, TotalEnergies, and BP among its partners.
The gas produced will be connected to the Angola LNG terminal, which has traditionally used gas associated with oil production, in a bid to secure and bolster feedstock.
He suggested that NGC has the potential to increase Angola LNG’s production to, or even exceed, its current capacity of 1 billion scuf (standard cubic feet) per day from the current 700 million to 800 million scuf per day.
