French oil group Total has revealed its plans to achieve a 25 per cent rise in output from its African oil and gas projects over the next five years
Post 2015, the oil giant has planned to reach a manufacturing capacity of three million barrels of oil a day.
The company, however, stressed its output projection of three million barrels of oil a day was not a production target, but an estimate of capacity based on an assumed oil price of US$100 a barrel.
Total recently said that 70 per cent of the fields on which it was basing its forecast for the 2015 to 2017 period were already either producing or in development.
Three of the projects that will help deliver the post-2015 surge are Egina in Nigeria, Kaombo in Angola and Moho in Congo.
Total and a number of other major oil firms, including BP and Shell, have been ramping exploration investments in relatively underdeveloped oil and gas markets such as Africa to take advantage of the high price of oil that averaged US$113.6 a barrel in the first half of 2012, up two per cent on the year.
Total also announced it had joined the race to exploit the potentially huge resources offshore Mozambique in East Africa.
The company already has operations in Uganda and Kenya in eastern Africa.
