French oil firm Total is banking on a string of African projects to help fuel a 25% rise in output over five years.
The company said yesterday it expected to top 3million barrels of oil and gas a day for the first time after 2015 and that 70% of the fields on which it was basing its forecast for the 2015-17 period were already either producing or in development.
Total stressed its output projection of 3million barrels of oil equivalent a day for 2017, up from about 2.4million today, was not a production target, but an estimate of capacity based on an assumed oil price of $100 a barrel.