Angola's deepwater oil field Agogo starts up: Eni

London — Italy's Eni said Friday it has started production at its offshore Angolan Agogo field, just nine months after the initial discovery.

The Agogo field, in Block 15/06, is currently pumping around 10,000 b/d and is set to reach 20,000 b/d during the next few weeks, Eni added.

The startup was swift due to its close proximity to the Ngoma floating production, storage and offloading vessel, or West Hub project, which has a 100,000 b/d processing capacity.

The crude grade Sangos is currently exported from Ngoma FPSO with loadings ranging around 65,000 b/d in 2019, S&P Global Platts estimates showed.

Sangos is a medium sweet grade, with an API of 32.20 and a sulfur content of 0.15%,

At the time of discovery, Eni said the Agogo find is estimated to contain 650 million barrels of 31 API crude in place.

Prolific Block 15

Eni said five oil discoveries have been found in Block 15/06 in the last year and a half -- Agidigbo, Kalimba, Afoxe, Agogo and Ndungu.

Preliminary estimates, suggest these finds contain about 2 billion barrels of oil in place, which is double the figures of the fields previously discovered in the West Hub and East Hub installations in Block 15, Eni said

"The two production hubs comprise eight fields developed through 42 underwater wells and the total production exceeded 180 million oil barrels by the end of 2019," Eni said.

Eni operates Block 15/06 with a 36.84% stake, alongside state-owned Sonangol (36.84%) and SSI Fifteen (26.32%). The Italian oil major's net production in Angola is around 145,000 b/d.