About Ivory Coast:
Ivory Coast, which ambitions to become a "major" oil producer by 2023, announced Thursday a new discovery of oil and natural gas by Italian hydrocarbon giant ENI. The fresh discovery expands the potential of reserves found last year by 25 percent.
In September 2021, the country announced a find of deposits by ENI its Ivorian partern Petroci Holding. The deposits were estimated at between 1.5 and 2 billion barrels of oil and around 1.8-2.4 trillion cubic feet (51-68 million cubic metres) of gas.
The latest discovery off the eastern coast "increases by about 25 percent" the previously announced deposits, the ministry for mines, oil and energy said in a statement, with extraction due to start in early 2023.
President Alassane Ouattara has said he wants Ivory Coast to become a major oil producer. The West African nation's current output is modest, at around 30,000 barrels per day.
International companies including French giant Total and Britain's Tullow Oil have also announced significant discoveries of Ivorian offshore oil reserves in recent years.
Ivory Coast Gets Profile Boost as Eni Discovers More Oil and Gas
- 1. Another Baleine find increases reserves in the area by 25%
- 2. Lack of big discoveries had hampered efforts to draw investors
Eni SpA made a second oil and gas discovery offshore Ivory Coast in less than a year, raising the country’s profile as a producer and increasing by about 25% the fossil fuel resources found in the area.
The Baleine field now holds an estimated 2.5 billion barrels of oil and 3.3 trillion cubic feet of associated gas following the drilling of an exploration well in block CI-802, the Italian energy major said in a statement.
The find was made about 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) east of a discovery announced by the company in September in an adjacent block.
Operator Eni owns 90% of CI-802, with the remainder belonging to state-run Petroci Holding. The partners have interests in six other deepwater blocks off the coast of the West African nation, which has until now struggled to draw oil and gas investors due to a lack of large discoveries. Its output, which stood at 37,179 barrels of oil a day in 2019, according to the most recent government figures, is dwarfed by neighbors such as Nigeria -- the continent’s largest producer -- and Ghana.
The latest find “validates the potential of the Ivorian sedimentary basin,” Oil Minister Mamadou Sangafowa-Coulibaly said Thursday in a separate statement.
Ivory Coast, the world’s top cocoa grower, is edging closer to its ambition of developing its extractive industries, but potential developments will straddle a period of surging oil prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as a movement away from fossil fuels to cleaner sources of energy.
This second discovery “confirms the extension” of the Baleine field, Eni said. A third well is planned and the first oil expected in the first half of 2023.
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