Oil production in Angola is expected to fall 1.2% to 1.13 million barrels per day due to operational difficulties, contributing to a slowdown in economic growth to 2.3% this year, Oxford Economics estimates.
“Due to maintenance work at the Dalia well, we project oil production to fall by 1.2 percent to 1.13 million barrels per day in 2023 and anticipate a drop of almost 13.7 percent in the average price of a barrel of oil to US$86.9,” the analysts wrote in a commentary on the evolution of Angola’s oil production, which in March posted its lowest value in almost two decades.
In the note, sent to clients and to which Lusa had access, the analysts from Oxford Economics’ African department also said that growth of Angola’s gross domestic product was expected to slow, from 2.9 percent posted last year to 2.3 percent this year, in contrast to forecasts from the Angolan government (3.3 percent), the World Bank (2.6 percent) and the International Monetary Fund (3.5 percent), with the Banco Fomento Angola research office predicting an even greater slowdown, to as much as 1.5 percent this year.
Rising oil production from new wells and extension projects on older ones completed in late 2021 and early last year “helped stabilise oil production last year, but the addition of new oil capacity was mostly offset by ongoing operational difficulties that led to production declines at older wells,” the analysts add.
It is also in an attempt to stem the decline in oil production and disinvestment in the country’s deepest wells that Angola plans to launch a tender for the exploration of 12 onshore blocks at the end of September, the analysts conclude.
Lusa
