Chevron Angola Oil Discovery

In what is at this time only being identified as a major oil discovery, Chevron announced that the find off Angola's shores still needs to be confirmed by further drilling, but the prospects of a significant oil field are pretty much ensured; it's only a matter of how much oil the field holds, which in cases like this are usually considered over 500 million barrels.

The oil and natural gas field is located off the Cabinda coast of Angola, enlarging the already significant portfolio Chevron has in the African nation.

Its affiliate Cabinda Gulf Oil Co made the find, of which Chevron has a 39.2 percent stake in. The state oil company of Angola - Sonangol owns 41 percent of Cabinda, while Total SA of France owns 10 percent and ENI SpA of Italy has a 9.8 percent stake in Cabinda.

This find continues to underscore the West African nation's growing importance to Chevron and the country's rising stature as an energy producer as its neighbor Nigeria continues to deal with militant attacks on its oil pipelines, which has cut oil production by 20 percent over the last three years.

This is one of many oil and gas discoveries off of Angola, which produced 1.85 million barrels of oil a day in July 2009.

Chevron, which now pumps over 500,000 barrels of oil a day from Angola, said the discovery, in Block 0, was drilled in March in 397 feet of water to a total vertical depth of 13,000 feet. It encountered over 225 feet of net hydrocarbon pay in the Upper Pinda formation, according to the company. Overall, Angola's output stands at about 2.1 million barrels of oil a day, which is a huge 53 percent increase from 2006.

Chevron also said the 79-3XST1 discovery well had a flow rate of 11.6 million cubic feet of natural gas and 2,550 barrels of liquid hydrocarbons a day.