Total starts new oil operations in Angola

PARIS, June 12 (UPI) -- French energy company Total said Thursday its latest operations off the coast of Angola could yield a production rate of 700,000 barrels per day.

Total said Thursday it started work at the so-called CLOV development project, located about 85 miles off the coast of Angola. CLOV, tied into the Cravo, Lirio, Orquidea and Violeta fields, is the fourth floating production storage and offloading vessel positioned in Total's Block 17 project offshore.

Arnaud Breuillac, president of exploration and production at Total, said CLOV has a production capacity of 160,000 barrels per day and will help increase overall production from the region to 700,000 bpd.

"Block 17 will therefore become Total's most prolific production site," he said in a statement.

In April, the company announced it made a $16 billion investment decision to develop the deep water Kaombo project off the coast of Angola.

The field, which has an estimated 650 million barrels of reserves, should produce 230,000 barrels of oil per day for Angola once operations begin.

Angola is a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. It has 9 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves and produces on average 1.7 million bpd.