Eni believes its Ndungu field could hold 800 million to 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent in place.
Initial estimates on the Angolan field pinned Ndungu at 250-300mn barrels. The increase puts Ndungu and Agogo at the largest discoveries on Block 15/06.
Eni drilled the Ndungu 2 appraisal well and, as a result, scaled up its expectations for the field. It drilled the appraisal 5 km from the discovery well, finding 40 metres of net oil pay in the Lower Oligocence reservoirs.
Eni began producing from the Ndungu field in February. The early production system had capacity of 20,000 barrels per day, the company said, noting it would help sustain plateau at the Ngoma facility.
The Ngoma floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel is at the heart of the West Hub, on Block 15/06.
The company began production at Ndungu through one production well. It plans to add a second producer in the fourth quarter of this year.
Eni will continue appraisal of the field while production is under way. The company plans to upgrade its plans for the field development. It aims to carry out a phased approach to develop the find. First, this will extend and increase the plateau at the 100,000 bpd FPSO.
Eni has a 36.84% stake in Block 15/06, as does Sonangol P&P. SSI Fifteen has 26.32%.
The Italian company is in the process of combining its Angolan assets with BP’s local assets in an independent company, Azule Energy. The Ndungu find, in addition to Agogo, on Block 15/06, and the PAJ project on BP’s Block 31, will provide a “solid pipeline of new projects starting up over the next few years”, it said.
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